Play provides opportunties that are vital for children's learning, so ACT Playgroups Association once again runs Playdates!

ACT Playgroups will be running several sessions of Playdates across Canberra during 2009.

What is a playdate? Playdates are sessions run by the ACT Playgroups Association's Development and Support workers. They are designed to provide parents and care givers with fun, educationally based activity sessions covering areas of play including messy play, drama, music and storytime, and physical play. Play activities are fun, engaging, structured and designed to assist and enhance child development. The sessions are split into baby sessions specifically for children up to 2, and general sessions available to all children up to 5 (although they are aimed primarily at 2-5 year olds).

Playdates are also a wonderful opportunity to obtain new ideas and actvities that you can implement at playgroup and at home. They are also a great place to meet other parents with young children from other playgroups, have fun and share ideas and experiences.  

These are intended as hands-on information sessions for you and your child(ren) to participate in. Information learnt can then be taken back to your playgroup.

The following sessions will be running:

Physical play:

Physical play provides an opportunity for children to direct their energy productively and enhance motor skills such as balance, co-ordination, self confidence, body awareness and strength. Our playdate gives children the opportunity to cllimb, swing, balance, hop, skip, throw, catch and twist and slide. Parents are given the opportunity to have fun being physical with their children whilst seeing how to make and use hand made physical play equipment.

Music Play:

Music is instrumental to children as it enriches them culturally and artistically and is wonderful for the growth of their creativity and imagination. Music has the power to delight, transform, motivate and nurture your child emotionally, developing your child's self-esteem, memory skills, co-ordination and social skills.

Messy Play:

Messy play will help children with their co-ordination, social and language skills. Messy play encourages the child to apply and develop fine motor skills and aids concentration. Through playing with slime, goop, messy playdought and finger paint, children have a wonderful sensory experience and can be easily introduced to new words such as prod, squeeze, drip, push, runny and hard.

Story Play (for all ages):

There are many ways to tell a story. Some involve participation, dramatisation, puppet play and lots of interaction. This session demonstrates several of those ways using books, paper, puppets, props and more! How do you encourage children to sit and listen, join in, etc.? We’ll show you how. This session is suitable for children 0-5 years old.

Baby Physical play; Baby Music play; Baby Messy play:   

Each of the above sessions are also provided for babies from 0-2 and adjusted to suit their needs. Babies learn vital skills in all areas of development through play. Babies explore and experiment with everything around them. They touch, taste, feel, and hear to discover new skills. During our baby play sessions babies and carers are introduced to a variety of activities and resources that can be used to aid in the development of the babies' physical, emotional, intellectual and social needs.
Note that the baby play sessions are intended for children between 0 and 2 years of age and we cannot offer childcare for older children.