Neve is now 20 months old, and appears to be growing up faster than ever before. I absolutely love this age – the little friendships that start to form, seeing her constantly learn, develop new skills, and start to make sense of the world around her. Her communication is improving by the day, with her now understanding pretty much everything I say, copying the words I say and repeating them back to me. She has come on leaps and bounds since she started nursery last September, and spending time around other babies and toddlers of a similar age, has proved to be really valuable in helping improve her social skills, learn about sharing her toys, and the importance of taking in turns!
According to leading psychologist Amanda Gummer, playdates are also a great way to help develop these skills, inviting other toddlers of a similar age around to play, and setting up some assisted activites and games in a relaxed and homely environment. I am lucky enough to have friends with babies of a similar age (between 18 and 24 months), and as such, thought a playdate would be a fun way to create some fun play time for the children whilst allowing us to have a well deserved catch up in the sunshine!
Neve is a huge fan of the Teletubbies, and having watched it first time around when Erin was a child, it’s quite nostalgic to watch Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po on CBeebies in the mornings before nursery. Neve loves the giggles, the bright colours and of course, the happy smiling face of the sun baby.
To celebrate the brand new series coming to CBeebies on the 4th June, Teletubbies have created a FREE downloadable Playdate pack, full to the brim of fun Teletubbies themed games, songs, activities and food suggestions, as well as hints and tips to ensure your playdate is a huge success.
Our #Tubbyplaydate was a fairly low key affair, but for those who want to host a slightly bigger playdate, or arrange one with children where you are less familiar with the parents, the cut out and complete playdate invites within the pack are ideal, with WhatsApp friendly versions also being available to download from the website should you wish to take a more tech savvy approach!
The Food
You simply can’t have a playdate without lots of snacks – and as our playdate was at the weekend, we decided to be a little adventurous and try and create some teletubbies themed treats. The Tubby Playdate pack gave us some great ideas including Jelly Cups (with layers of different coloured jelly) and Tubby Toast (using wraps and veggie sticks). Taking inspiration from these, but with Neve being one of the pickiest eaters known to man, we opted for some slightly different alternatives, including Tubby toast (actual toast made with a toast press) and a rainbow fruit salad. Neve being Neve, only ate the toast (but hey, I wouldn’t expect anything different!)
Accessories
The children were all encouraged to bring along their favourite Teletubbies toys, and to get them in the playdate mood, we made some headbands of their favourite characters using the template antennas in the pack – these were super easy to create, simply cutting out the templates and using a lolly pop stick or some think cardboard for support to keep them upright. To create the headband, you can either use a thin strip of cardboard which could easily be looped round the childrens heads and stuck in place, or like us, real headbands with the antenna stuck in place. Neve’s favourite is Tinky Winky, so it was a bit of a no brainer than this is who she would choose. A bit confused at first, she found it hilarious looking at her reflection when I popped my phone on selfie mode!
We also decided to make our own Sun Baby masks, cutting out a sun shape from a paper plate before attaching it to a lollypop stick! The girls absolutely loved holding it up to their faces and peeping through, I think Neve quite fancies herself as the baby in the opening credits! 🙂
Decorations
One of our first activities was to get the children involved in helping decorate our garden, the venue for our playdate. We had bought some of our own decorations with a Teletubbies theme, but the Teletubbies playdate pack also includes some templates that you can use as a fun craft activity with the children – colour your own bunting. There are bunting triangles for you to cut out featuring Po, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Tinky Winky which the children can colour in/scribble on to bring them to life, before attaching some string or ribbon to hang them around your venue!
For slightly older children, the pack also includes templates to make tissue flowers which can be used to decorate your own sunny Teletubbies lawn.
Activities
We did a number of activities on the day inspired by the Teletubbies Playdate pack including lots of singing and dancing. Neve absolutely loves music, and Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes is a big favourite of hers, with her now recognising her own body parts and madly trying to keep up as the song runs it’s course! Singing in a group was even more appealing, with the children smiling at each other and laughing when the adults joined in too!
We also bought out the bubble Machine, encouraging the children to run around, attempt to catch them and watch them pop as they landed on the floor. I am yet to meet a child who doesn’t get somewhat ECSTATIC when the bubbles come out, so this was a real highlight of the playdate. You can buy bubble mixture ready made, but the Teletubbies playdate pack also provides instructions on how to make your own if you prefer.
Finally we played a Teletubbies version of ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ – encouraging the children to pop a small splat of paint (a sticker) as close as they could to their favourite character. This was fun, despite Neve refusing point blank to wear a blindfold on her turn!!
Our playdate lasted four around 2 hours, by which time the children were all pretty tired, and to be fair the adults too! A calming episode of Teletubbies was the perfect end to the day, and we watched with huge smiles on our faces, feeling slightly smug as they all sat contently together on the sofa, in complete silence, until home time.
I’m not going to lie, there was some squabbling, some frequent exclamations of “MINE!!!!” and some throwing of our lovingly made Tubby Toast, but overall I really really enjoyed hosting my Telletubbies playdate and would happily have one again. The playdate pack is a great tool for ensuring you have everything you need to make the day run smoothly.
If you’d like to host your own Teletubbies playdate, the Teletubbies playdate pack is available to download at Teletubbies.com
*This is a collaborative post. We were sent some Teletubbies merchandise for our playdate and compensated for our time*
