Baby Sleep the Night

Having trouble getting your baby / toddler to sleep? Let me help you as I have been there too.

I am currently working towards finalising my certification and am offering a 2 week package which usually would cost £250 for £50 in exchange for an honest review of my service and a testimonial if you’re happy with the results at the end of our time together.

It is worth mentioning that I do not use the ‘ cry it out ‘ method, which many frazzled parents may possibly have tried and found not successful in the past. I use a very gentle approach taught to me by one of the leading baby sleep consultants in the UK which allows you to be there every step of the way to help provide comfort to your little one whilst they learn this new and important skill. I am incredibly passionate about sleep having suffered sleep deprivation with my own children and I know that healthy sleep habits mean healthy happy children.

If you know of anyone who this may help, please pass on my details or share to your entire address book!

www.babysleepthenight.com

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow NorthHantsMum onTwitterFacebook ProfileLinkedIn and Feedly. I hope to see you there! 

New Class!! – Baby Mindful

Baby Mindful classes are an amazing opportunity for parent and baby to connect and spend time getting to know each other in a calm supportive environment. It’s so easy to be caught in a whirlwind of being busy, and Baby Mindful is an opportunity to leave the to-do list and worries behind, and focus on your baby, and also your needs too – Time to just “be” rather than “do”.

You will also learn tools to help you manage the emotional rollercoaster of parenthood (and indeed life!), that will remain valuable throughout your journey as a parent – the ability to respond rather than react to situations, and be the calm your baby seeks.The classes follow a different theme each week and offer a range of activities to support the natural development of your baby, using activities that will gently stimulate and calm them and support their cognitive, communicative, social, emotional and physical development.

Each class has seven sections with different activities in each – Move, Play, Stretch, Feel, Breathe, Believe and Relax – with benefits for both your baby and you.

Classes are for 0-6 month babies at 10am, and also more action based classes for 6-12 month babies at 11:15am.

Overton Community Centre, Overton, RG25 3HB
https://www.facebook.com/babymindfulwithlaura/

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow NorthHantsMum onTwitter, Facebook ProfileLinkedIn and Feedly. I hope to see you there! 

Baby Mindful – Free Taster Sessions!

Free taster sessions available with spaces on Monday 11th and Monday 18th March, 10.30am in Overton Community Centre

Baby Mindful classes are an amazing opportunity for parent and baby to connect and spend time getting to know each other in a calm supportive environment. It’s so easy to be caught in a whirlwind of being busy, and Baby Mindful is an opportunity to leave the to-do list and worries behind, and focus on your baby, and also your needs too – Time to just “be” rather than “do”.

You will also learn tools to help you manage the emotional rollercoaster of parenthood (and indeed life!), that will remain valuable throughout your journey as a parent – the ability to respond rather than react to situations, and be the calm your baby seeks.

The classes follow a different theme each week and offer a range of activities to support the natural development of your baby, using activities that will gently stimulate and calm them and support their cognitive, communicative, social, emotional and physical development.

Each class has seven sections with different activities in each – Move, Play, Stretch, Feel, Breathe, Believe and Relax – with benefits for both your baby and you.

Weekly classes will be starting in Overton after Easter, with some taster sessions coming soon. I can also visit your home for 1:1 or family sessions, or for a session with your own group of friends, such as a NCT group.

For more info: https://www.facebook.com/babymindfulwithlaura/

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow NorthHantsMum onTwitterFacebook ProfileLinkedIn and Feedly. I hope to see you there! 

Messy Monkey Makers

Hi my name is Kerry and I am the owner of Messy Monkey Makers in Basingstoke, some of you may remember it previously being called Messy Monsters!  I bought and took over the business in April of this year and since then I have been busy rebranding and putting lots of new exciting messy play classes, it’s all been very exciting.

So more about Messy Monkey Makers, my classes are fun, exciting, sensory and messy exploration classes for age 6 months to 5 years!

Our classes offer your little monkey an environment to explore their imagination, concentration and freedom of expression in a fun, safe and non-restricted environment.  We can offer them the chance to explore using resources such as sand, water, slime, paint, playdough and much more! This enables them to understand how things feel, smell, sound, taste all which can support their development.

At Messy Monkey Makers it’s not about the finished product, it’s about the process. We do not make things that are perfect we make things that are squidgy, squelchy, crafty, creative, splodgy, sparkly and most of all messy. Our aim is to empower children of all ages and ability through creativity.

Mess without the stress!

Classes run during term time on a Tuesday and Friday starting at 10:30am and are ran out of Popley Fields Community Centre.  I also run special events once a month on a Sunday and also have events during the school holidays.

Drop in’s are available for £6 but need to be booked in advance and are subject to availability.

For more information or to get booked on please go to www.messymonkeymakers.com
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/messymonkeymakers/
Instagram @messymonkeymakers
Or via email kerry@messymonkeymakers.com

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow NorthHantsMum onTwitter,Facebook PageFacebook ProfileLinkedIn and Feedly. I hope to see you there! 

Baby Paddlers

Baby Paddlers is a small swim school which has grown across Hampshire and is really excited to be opening a new pool in Odiham. Our teachers are trained and recruited to always be looking at the best way for you and your child to have fun in the water. Our values are honest, approachable, positive, progressive, exciting and encouraging….our own version of how to create lots of HAPPEE little swimmers! Cheesy as this sounds this is at the forefront of everything we do, we offer a flexibility with our unique catch up system to ensure customers do not miss a week swimming!

Our Milestones programme with our colourful characters was launched in 2017 and has been a fantastic way to track how all swimmers are progressing and gives teachers a brilliant guide to follow all our children through their development on a group and individual basis. We love seeing our preschoolers graduate at the end of their swimming years with us.

Our newborn classes are held in warm pools and focus on bonding with your baby, gentle activities to introduce them to the water at the right pace for each child. Teachers use the milestones programme and talk to parents to ensure this goes at the right speed and when they are ready to move on we can introduce them to the beauty of being underwater and to slowly learning how to hold on, play with toys and use their senses to enjoy the water.

Once they reach the right stage we move on to swooshing them around the water and lots and lots of jumping which the older babies and toddlers absolutely love and will giggle creating the fun environment which will set them up for a love of the water!

Our main aim is to develop water confidence using toys, songs and lots of fun. Word association and recognition is a big part of what we do, encouraging children to kick, paddle, swim, jump, hold on – all so important in the early years.

Our baby and toddler swimming classes have a maximum of 8 and our preschool classes a maximum of 6, this ensures that your child is in a fun group environment but has the opportunity for one on one time with the teacher.

The Milestones programme is designed to help you understand the stages and learning milestones that your child will progress through as part of the Baby Paddlers journey. Every stage has been created to ensure focus on a number of key development areas, from physical and sensory development to swimming milestones that they will reach during these early years. No two children are the same so the programme is designed to offer flexibility in teaching so our teachers can tailor their classes to meet the needs of the children. There are four stages and each stage has 3 levels.

At Baby Paddlers we absolutely love what we do, all teachers revel in teaching parents to have fun in the water with their children, come and find out more about us and get in touch to book a course or to come along to a summer special to see what we are all about.

Please visit us at https://www.babypaddlers.co.uk for more details.

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow NorthHantsMum onTwitter,Facebook Page, Facebook Profile, LinkedIn and Feedly. I hope to see you there!

Review 2018: TNT Family Fitness

Thank you very much to “L” for today’s NHM Secret Review!

Review 2018: TNT Family Fitness

My 2 and a half year old daughter and I recently attended the first TNT Family Fitness (http://tntfamilyfitness.co.uk/) session at Viables Community Centre.

The TNT Family Fitness moto is ‘making family’s fit’. Their classes cater for all the family by using activities that are fun and engaging for children but in a way that means adults can exercise.

By joining the fun and fitness together it means you can be doing something beneficial whilst having great quality family time!

I was a bit nervous about attending the class as I’ve not done loads in the way of exercise since having my second baby and my eldest always takes a little while to warm up to classes and start to join in. I had no need to be worried! The first thing Andy did was throw a load of football’s out for the children to play with while parents filled out their registration forms, that was it my little girl was straight off running around and playing with the other children!

We started off doing a warm up but this was no ordinary warm up, it was ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ complete with lots of lunges, stretches and running! After that we played a game that involved running to different colour cones and doing various movements including star jumps, high knees and stretches.

My daughter’s favourite activity was tidying the balls away. It wasn’t just tidying balls away though, there were football’s and tennis balls everywhere! We had to run to them and parents had the option of lunging, squatting or doing a press up to pick up the ball and then run and place it in the right coloured hoop. Great activity for the parents as it really got us moving and great for the children as it got them moving and thinking about colours!

Other activities involved an egg and spoon race (my daughter was better than me!!!) And capture the flag (the tent was a big hit!). We finished off with a cool down.

We really enjoyed our session and it’s definitely something we’d do again!

There are still more sessions on this summer at a variety of locations in Basingstoke and it’s not too late to book.

14 August at Old Basing
21 August at Melrose Hall
28 August at Melrose Hall

The time of the session depends on the age of your child – there is one for under 5s and one for over 5s.

More information can be found over on the TNT Family Fitness Facebook page!

https://www.facebook.com/TNTFamilyFitnessUK/

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow NorthHantsMum onTwitter,Facebook PageFacebook ProfileLinkedIn and Feedly. I hope to see you there! 

Caterpillar Music Expansion! Newbury and Winchester

Hi! I’m Jaz and I set up Caterpillar Music in Basingstoke in 2012. Our weekly music, movement and sensory classes got so popular that the 2 that I started with quickly grew to 6, then 10 and now we’re at a fabulous 24 weekly classes, many with waiting lists. I found I could no longer run sessions as just little old me, so now we are a team of 5!

Nicky was one of my class leaders that started with me back in 2016. I mentioned to her that I’d love to expand and go even further than where I was (Basingstoke, Bramley and Tadley). After her laughing and saying I do enough (she is actually right- doing this and taking care of my 3 little ones…! but I do love it!!) She said she’d love to come on board and wondered if we could do it together. We get on so well and also have a great working relationship. So we decided to go for it!! We are currently in the process of expanding.

We are setting up our superb classes to Winchester and Newbury and are launching this September.

For those of you that haven’t come to Caterpillar Music let me give you a little idea of what we do… each unique session will include a variety of amazing puppets, instruments, bubbles, parachutes, light shows, sensory equipment and much more. Each week is a new adventure. We could be diving under the sea one week and going to the circus the next.

We currently have over 300 Mums that come each 1/2 term and we often have families stay with us right from their little ones being tiny until they start preschool and even school.

One of the most precious things is to see a little one clap for the first time, or crawl to the puppet bag. We’ve had lots of “firsts” at class and it’s so lovely to be part of the journey that childhood is. We also work really hard on ensuring our classes are relaxed and comfortable for parents and carers and to help everyone feel welcome and “at home”.

We are SO excited for this new journey we are on to bring our sessions to new families. We will be launching in South Wonston, Winchester, Kingsclere and Thatcham to begin with. Once we’ve conquered those areas, no doubt we’ll be opening elsewhere too!

If you have friends or family or you’d like to come along to our new classes please do find us. We’re on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CaterpillarMusicNewburyandWinchester 

Jaz & Nicky xx

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow NorthHantsMum onTwitter,Facebook PageFacebook ProfileLinkedIn and Feedly. I hope to see you there! 

Caterpillar Music Fleet and Hook

Caterpillar Music arrives in HART!

You are never too young to start learning and thanks to new classes starting in Hook, Odiham and Fleet babies and toddlers will be banding together and learning to make fun music.

Offering under fours a fun filled environment to enjoy music classes Caterpillar Music class leader Katharine Slater aims to ensure there is lots of learning through the routines where each child is given instruments and puppets to help them interact during each session.

The weekly sessions run by the UK’s fastest growing network of children’s activity classes will be 40 minutes designed to encourage language development, listening skills, co ordination, confidence and social skills through the use of puppets, songs, actions, stories and various themes.

From September Katharine will be running two morning sessions at three locations in Hart – Monday classes with be at the North Warnborough Village Hall Odiham, Wednesdays at the Hook Community Center and Thursdays at the Willis Hall Crookham Fleet.

For further details contact Katharine at:

kathy.slater@caterpillarmusic.com

 CaterpillarMusicFleetandHook

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. 

New Class!! Drama Tots Classes in Basingstoke

My background is in acting and theatre and a good friend of mine has developed the Drama Tots programme with themes related to the EYFS curriculum.

Having attended several different classes with my own children as well as having taught preschool sessions before, I am delighted to be bringing this new programme to our area. Drama Tots harnesses imaginary play, music and movement in fun interactive sessions.

We use original music recorded and written by our creator, making each session completely unique.

I am saddened by the removal of many of these kind of activities from the curriculum in school. I feel Drama Tots fills a gap in the market and has been doing really well in Coventry where it originated.

More information can be found on our website, www.dramatots.co.uk and I will be updating my Facebook page regularly, Drama Tots Basingstoke.

Classes will be held term times only on Monday mornings at St Mary’s church room in Old Basing and Thursday mornings at Lychpit village hall, starting the week of the 25th September.

I am also planning on visiting nurseries and preschools on a regular basis so please contact me for more information.

Best wishes,

Kate

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe.

Rock & Pop Foundation Owner and enrolled parent Steve Sammut

Look out for details below about the half price taster sessions!!

Rock & Pop Foundation

My personal journey began at the age of 8 where I was desperate to play the guitar and had encouragement from a father who was a professional full time percussionist enrolled in the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for over 13 years.

Being the youngest of 7 children my other brother and sisters said I was the spoilt one as by the time I started to play mum and dad could just afford to pay for lessons.

Guitar lessons were offered at my middle school St Joseph’s Primary in Guildford where the option was either classical or folk lessons which seems strange now as we teach the guitar and cover a combination of both.

Because I had good finger picking technique behind me and quick chord combinations, I was taught how to read music and went straight in at Grade 2 classical guitar Trinity College of Music passing with a merit within 9 months of starting the classical guitar.

Fast forward, at 14 years old I was studying for grade 8 classical guitar and went through the usual teenage transition of becoming an adult. My father was convinced I was going to the Army Kneller Hall of Music, demanded a military style to practice (an hour a day) and constant nagging with phrases like “When I was in the Army I had to………. and so the story goes!! By 15 I quit playing the guitar!

Secondary school was not inspiring for me as if you didn’t play football your weren’t considered one of the crowd and me loving cooking and guitar meant I wasn’t one of the lads. A similar story rings true of a legend by the name of Ed Sheeran.

After choosing a path in Hotel and Management at college I started working in the Hotel trade and was offered a position with a Caribbean Cruise Line.

On one of my ships there was a crew talent show where crew were invited to play or perform. I switched back into performance mode and wowed the cruise director with my playing so much so that I was offered auditions to play in the show band. Fast forward 5 years later at the age of 28 I left my final ship, performed literally around the world as a professional musician with some very big names in a 6 star environment.

Having returned to the UK I got my first teaching position working for a county service music organisation that taught music lessons in schools. The first observation for me was a lack of personal service, syllabus, framework and common standards – the lesson delivery was poor and there was no consistency in the delivery. Some music services started guitar lessons using recorder books!! You would turn up to deliver a first guitar group lesson and 3 out of 6 children had a guitar and only half of them had remembered to buy books.

After training I eventually started my own schools and thought I needed to raise the standards in music education –  where there was no framework or syllabus I decided to write one. Within 9 months I wrote the first of the Guitar Trainer Series Books  using sports as a theme. Going back to my childhood of athletics and  sports training  my students were happy to call me coach, enjoyed their guitar training and worked hard to improve on their technique. After a while I had teachers coming to view my lessons and they soon bought into my schemes of work.

When I tried to standardise the concept to the county music service all my fresh ideas like, buying and hiring guitars for first lessons, delivering books direct to schools and even attending exam centres to tune and accompany kids, were not taken on board.

It was a frustrating time and I eventually left and 6 schools soon followed as well as other teachers who wanted to join me. Within the first year I had 4 teachers, 300 children all using my schemes of work and this was all operated  with a small home office and one Pentium PC.

Within 3 years we had 1000 children and expanded from guitar into keyboard, piano and drums. Finally in 2000, my scheme of work got nationally accredited by Rockschool who then worked alongside us to make sure our schemes of work had a meaningful qualification and pathway.

Some 40,000 children later we continue with the same principles we started with 20 years ago. A uniformed approach, Industry professional tutors, excellent customer service standards, an accredited scheme of work and now – the icing on the cake, we have college status with Farnham 6th form College to deliver Level 3 diplomas with Pathways to industry which brings me back to you as mums and dads who are building on your child’s skills and experiences for their future.

The Rock and Pop Foundation continues to grow from strength to strength and our online brochure has a range of activities and services to suit all your contemporary music needs as a school, parent or company. We now have a blueprint school in Germany as well as providing solutions for home school learners. The motto is “ the answer is yes , now what’s the question”

If you as a parent are not happy with the level of music education in your school, or looking for music lessons please call us for a meaningful chat and we can hopefully work with you as a parent or member of the school to find a solution to keep your children motivated. We always work from recommendation and hope to see you all soon.

These sessions are for ks2 and above aged children and sessions are based in Aldershot.

You can also find out more about the rock and pop foundation at: https://www.facebook.com/rockandpopfoundation/

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe.