The Day CBeebies visited Playgroup

Yesterday CBeebies came to film at our playgroup bringing the very lovely Alex Winters with them. Alex was so lovely, all the children loved him, some of them were a little starstruck, some of them recognised him but couldn’t quite place him, but he was lovely, normal, unstarry and lots of fun. My son just kept pointing at him and saying “Beebies man”.

Alex Winters CBeebies
Alex Winters chats to the children at playgroup. My monkey is modelling the paper hat!

Alex “worked the room” but then settled himself down at the craft table. The children were making woolly sheep with cotton wool. He did several pieces to camera and chatted with the children in between takes.

Alex Winters - CBeebies
Lots of sticking and glueing – Alex watches as the kids make woolly sheep.

Alex was filming a series of information films for the CBeebies grown ups website. The segments he filmed with us were about doing craft activities with your child. He explained about how beneficial sticking and glueing and throwing glitter everywhere is to their development.

Alex Winters - CBeebies
Lights! Camera! Action!

Some of the Mums and Dads were then taken to a separate room to be interviewed about doing craft activities with their children. I think everyone enjoyed meeting Alex and we all had fun making our woolly sheep. I think there will be disappointed faces when he’s not there next week!

Look out for the film on the CBeebies website over the next few weeks.

Note: I had permission from the parents of the children pictured to use these pictures, some did ask that I blanked their faces out, thus allowing me to show off my very mediocre photo-editing skills.

In The Night Garden live

When my Mr suggested we take the boy to see his favourite thing in the world my heart sank a little. It’s not that I want to deny him fun, but thanks to BBC iplayer I get “treated” to about four episodes a day and I cannot bear it.

So many months ago I reluctantly agreed, took out a small mortgage and bought some tickets. We refused the horrifyingly expensive add-ones. £15 to meet Daisy. No thanks, if she was going to come back to ours and get cracking with the ironing maybe. But no. £20 for a goodie bag? No! He’s 2 he doesn’t really care.

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So we arrived early and we were ushered through the massive inflatable theatre in the car park of the Trafford Centre. The boy didn’t really understand what was going on but did get excited each time he saw a picture of a character. We found what were excellent seats and settled down. As I said, we arrived early and we waited half an hour for it to start. But no worries, they had fabulous projections on the walls which kept the little ones entertained as well as In The Night Garden (ITNG) sound effects. The half hour passed quickly, punctuated only by being mugged for £6 for a twirly light with Iggle Piggle on it, admittedly it kept him entertained for the rest of the evening and beyond. But tat all the same.

The show started much to the boys delight, it was colourful, entertaining and true to the TV version. Both husband and I were horribly bored after about 20 minutes but we were both enchanted by the delight on our sons face. He loved it, every second, every song, everything about it.

It lasted about 50 minutes and much to the boys disappointment we had to leave. In the car on the way home he was shouting “Again, Daisy, again!” Bless him.

Would I go again? Yes. But I do feel like I’ve been spanked for cash, but pretty much anything you do with your kids feels like that these days.

You can find out more about the show here – http://www.nightgardenlive.com/

Disclaimer: I wasn’t paid or asked to write this post, I went of my own accord and paid for the tickets and everything else myself.