Snow White

Tiger Who came to Tea

 STORY SACKS

As part of our plan to encourage communication and sharing stories with your children we are doing a complete overhaul of all our story sacks .... and creating some new story and theme sacks. We are up to around 40 at the last count

Baby Sack

Dentist / Selfish Crocodile



New Baby / sibling



 A full list of the sacks is in the entrance foyer with the updated bags on pegs labelled as to content.  We have included suggested age ranges and a list of contents together with photos as seen here.

We are asking for a fee of £2 per bag for a period, as with other toys, of 4 weeks.  Each bag has upwards of 10 items inside so a bargain at this price (Our annual membership payers will also be asked to pay £1 of this fee) - and only counts as one of your items borrowed.

Come along and browse the selection and watch each week as our updated sacks are put on display - if you borrow now you and your children can explore the sacks over the half term break !



Camping Trip



Musical bumps at stay and play

Wednesday this week sees our introductory session to Musical Bumps with Angela Bogie - can't wait for the fun to begin.  We are asking families for a £1 contribution for stay and play on this day in the hope that we can ask Angie along to future sessions also.

We have been successful in our recent bid to the Shepshed and Hathern Community Forum gaining funds towards offering some guided play sessions and increasing our advertising and marketing to attract more users to our unique service.

The play sessions will run between June - December and will cover topics such as

• treasure basket exploration with babies and young children,
• children's communication - how adult interaction can help,
• physical development for babies / toddlers and beyond
• putting the play back into learning - helping adults to play alongside!

Dates for these sessions will be advertised shortly with some running in our existing stay and play times and some outside to try and suit all our supporting families.

If you have any particular interest in any of these outline topics then do let us know by emailing to shepshedtoylib@tiscali.co.uk with your interest and contact details so we can keep you informed as dates are planned.

Other sessions coming up will include dedicated child minder sessions during National Childminding Week (11 - 15th June) run by our own Professional Childminder - Maria, who will help and support child minders on aspects of the new EYFS, record keeping, Learning Journeys and basically any other queries or support needed.  Again - let us know if you'd like to come along.

Look forward to seeing you soon

MUSICAL BUMPS
We are delighted to continue our relationship with Angie Bogie and MUSICAL BUMPS.  Angie is visiting our Stay & Play session on WEDNESDAY 16TH MAY to give us a taster of music and fun.  We are inviting everyone to come along to our normal session from 9.30am.  We are asking for a contribution of £1 per family and hope this will mean we can invite Angie along again in the future.

We are also pleased to remind you of our BIRTHDAY PARTY scheme.  The Toy library is available for parties at a cost of £20 per hour hired - this will include setting up and clearing away time (Min hire 2 hours) - you can borrow toys from the lending library and use the kitchen area to prepare your birthday tea.  The Toy Library is available for hire anytime we are not open including evenings and weekends.

SPECIAL OFFER
Angie is offering to combine our party scheme with a MUSICAL BUMPS PARTY for a discounted rate of only £60 (instead of £75) if held at the Toy Library before 13th July 2012!  WOW what an offer.
This means your child and 11 friends can have a fabulous party at the Toy Library including up to an hour of Musical bumps for only £100!

Please ask toy library staff for details of availability and booking forms.

COME ALONG AND HAVE SOME FUN!

St George and the Dragon has been our theme since coming back after Easter and our impressive display of the St George cross and some fierce dragons have certainly made an impact.  We have been playing with castles and make believe play whilst still looking at different construction and "little finger" toys.  Remember everything in the play room can be borrowed so the fun can carry on at home.

Our recent delivery of new stock and additional resources for our craft and stationery shop are also worth a look!

A reminder of our Thursday night session this week 6.30 - 7.30pm- do come along and support us.

Lots of fantastic comments about the space in the stay and play room - do come along and see for yourselves!

We have just put in a bid for some funds to run some guided play sessions and you can support our bid by visiting www.leicestershireforums.org/shepsh and scrolling down the list of other bids to find our entry "Developing Play - Shepshed Toy Library". Have a read and make a comment. Whilst your comment doesn't act as a vote the judges will take into account the number of community supporters of our project when making our decision.

If successful we willbe able to run some sessions on baby tummy time and physical development / promoting speech and language in the under 5's and some treasure basket and exploration activities - all really valuable stuff so do your bit for us so we can help you!

Please pass on to your friends and relatives who live locally so they too can offer their support.

Many thanks

New Term

Well the Easter holidays are now behind us and we are gearing up for a great lead into the summer term with the Diamond Jubilee celebration picnics and many arts and crafts with a theme of knights, princesses and all things royal.

You will notice a few changes at the toy library so do come and visit us and tell us what you think!

We open again on Monday and continue our usual sessions on Mon / Wed / Fri between 9.30 - 12.00, our next Thursday evening being 26th April from 6.30 - 7.30pm.

All welcome !