Play Dates Childminding

Morning all, if you are looking for something to do today with the little ones. Please pop along to this. Jacob is the older brother of Alice and Lucas who I look after and have done for the past 3 1/2 years. They are raising funds to be able to take Jacob to America in May for some stem transplant operation. Xx

In November we always recognise “Remembeance Day”, some might say the children are too young or don’t understand, we don’t go into lots of details with the little ones but we always say thank you to the soldiers and we extend our learning through different channels.
Messy play is always more popular with the Children than the parents 🤣 so we make sure we give the little ones lots of different resources to try out, some like to sit and observe at the start and over time will explore more. Some love just getting stuck in and the messier the better!

October we had so much fun from painting pumpkins with apples, biscuit decorating, getting dressed up for our monthly trip to the care home, pumpkin picking, and then a party to celebrate the end of term for all the children. Georgia and her friend (my god daughter) were a great help and the children loved having them around. They are lucky to get two weeks at 1/2 term. They have asked to help again in the Easter hols

Never the same day twice that’s for sure, we have so much fun, from a trip to the local park, the zoo, or Knowsley Safari to our weekly Jo Jingles session to messy play. We also attend a local care home once a month to share our love of music with the residents.

Today marks 11 years since Play Dates was launched, it started off as a playgroup session on a Friday and we ran that for a few years.

18 months later The Childminding business started. I know I have said this before but I could not have got to where I am today without the team around me, past and present and without all the wonderful families I have cared for and are currently offering care to. I absolutely love what I do and it’s soooo true we never have the same day twice. 🤣
Thank you for always recommending me, either to friends, family members or a tag on a Facebook post. It means so much.

It’s true that I can’t go out now without bumping into either a past or present family and it’s so lovely to hear how they are getting on. Georgia and I always try and guess how many people we will bump into, she’s usually right too 😊

Once again thank you for all the love and support and I look forward to many more happy years of loving what I do. 🥰

So something a little different…. This year I arranged a wreath making evening and some of the mums from the setting joined me and we had a great night. It was so lovely to be able to chat and have a giggle and make our very own Christmas wreaths.

Gabby is amazing and what I love about her sessions compared to others I have attended in the past are, the quality and the choice of the materials are excellent and she doesn’t limit you to just a few of each, you make your wreath as big as you want, with what you want.
Gabby is also on hand to guide you, and help with anything .

We picked the Blue Cap in Cuddington as our venue and they were fantastic, they donated a free glass of fizz for all the mums, a bottle for us to raffle off, they also provided complimentary tea coffee and water. The room hire was a great size I can highly recommend it.

Our weekly sessions with Jo Jingles are a big part of our setting and have been for the past 9 years.

We get to see our friends.
We build on our experiences.

Cheryl is able to tailor our classes if we have a particular Interest or theme.

We have e lots of fun.

Thank you for everything you do for us Cheryl
🎶 😃 💃

We recently went to one of the local care homes and supported our very good friend Jo Jingles.

Cheryl and Jo provide a session where they bring two generations together through music. We all know how much our children love Jo Jingles so it was great to be able to show off the children’s talents with some local residents.

Both the Children and the residents loved the session so much we will now be attending once a month.

More summer holiday fun……
We went on the train to a local park.
We held our very own Olympics.

I’ve not posted on here for a while. 🙈
We have been having lots of fun over the last few months.
We have welcomed lots of new families, seen some of the children I have cared for since babies start high school 😊.

We are currently full but will have some spaces in January 2026.

I have shared a few pictures of some of the fun things we get up to each week.

Trips to the local soft play
Trips to the park
Trips to the Alpaca farm
Trips to the beach.
Trips to the zoo
Trips to the safari
Jo Jingles session
Mini dribblers sessions

We have also had our summer holiday club, which is very popular.

This summer we had a visit from the very talented Rachael from HulaDaze who provided a circus themed day.
We took the children bowling which was great fun.
We had a water fun day, where we used super soakers and water bombs and the children had to try and soak the adults which kept us cool in the sun.

Did you know we offer after school care for children who attend Antrobus St Mark's C of E Primary School it’s such a lovely school in a village not far from Northwich, small class sizes too. They have an open day on Thursday, why not pop along and join in some of the free activities.

Save the date

We know Antrobus is an amazing school, but many people still don't know we even exist!
Can you help us to get noticed by spreading the word on social media and verbally.

My final post of the evening but I have to say this is probably one of my favourite activities! I absolutely love the outdoors and you will often hear me say, “no such thing as bad weather! It’s bad clothing.” 😆

We get outdoors as much as we can. We are so lucky to have our own forest school attached to the setting so when we had the opportunity of one of our colleagues leading a Forest school session I jumped at the chance!

Jen I can’t thank you enough for the amazing opportunities you bring to the session and we absolutely love it! So thank you.