Preschool Co-Op Playgroup

Sunday June 14, 2009

The kids have been out of “school” for 3 weeks, but tomorrow marks the first real day of summer for us. As in, the beginning of the “Mom, what are we going to do today?” days.

Because preschool ends so early – around Memorial Weekend, and public school ends much later (mid June), many of the moms from preschool were interested in finding *something* to keep the kids occupied. So, 11 of us got together and organized a daily playgroup, rotating around the different houses. We decided to run playgroup M-Th. One mom would host and another mom would assist and the rest of the moms got a few hours of freedom. Fridays were intended to be park days, where all the moms would meet up at a designated park (due to rain and other factors, this part didn’t really pan out for us). We ran our playgroup from 9:15 – 12:30, packing lunches for the kids so they could practice bringing their lunch and eating somewhere else like they will in kindergarten in the fall.

It worked pretty well. The kids have known each other for two years, some even longer as many of us participated in the pre-pre-school “Little Lambs” co-op (a PDO program affiliated with our preschool). Because many of had already done the co-op thing with Little Lambs, the moms were familiar with each other and keeping the kids busy. Thankfully at this age, they don’t need as much direct supervision or hands on oversight.

My kids had fun going to a new house each day and playing with their friends.

Here are some pictures from our outings at a couple of houses.

S loved rolling down the hill on the ride-on cars

The Three Musketeers

Getting ready to rumble

The hula queen – we were all in awe of her abilities

Bubble fun!

Sprinkler fun!

And more – check out my ankle biter in the mix.

He did not mind being wet one bit.

$At our house - apparently the sand & water table (devoid of water and with only a fraction of sand) was extremely fascinating.$

At our house – apparently the sand & water table (devoid of water and with only a fraction of sand) was extremely fascinating.

The spread – thanks to C for bringing the hulas!

Snack time

The obstacle course! Kids ran through the hulas, down the slide and into the pool. Then hippity hopped around the small pool, under the “bridge”, then “mowed the lawn” to the slip n slide where they bear crawled to the end, finishing with a “ta da!”