St Mary's Toy Library Launch

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On the 12th May 2017 we launched our second Toy library which is attached to St Mary’s in Grahamstown.  This project is funded by the Jim Joel Foundation and provides a wonderful resource for teachers, parents and children.  The library is open 5 days a week and special appointments must be made by the surrounding schools in order to allocate them a slot where the Toy library facilitators can work with the children.  The activities are CAPs aligned and include the use of recyclable materials.  Parents and teachers are shown how to use recyclable materials to develop resources for classrooms and stimulating activities for learners.  At our recent launch a set of activities were available to children and parents who came to investigate what this is all about.  Despite very chilly winter weather the parents and children from the surrounding community turned out in their numbers.  The children were excited to have the opportunity to play games, hear stories, have their faces painted and explore the resources of the library.  A special blessing was bestowed on the library by an ADCC monk together with speeches given by the Director of CSD, Dr Giulietta Harrison; a member of St Mary’s Board, Ms Margie Keeton and the Toy library facilitator, Ms Nolly Shelle who urged parents to use the resource wisely.  Toy library two will work in collaboration with our first Toy library under Ms Vatiswa Joni.  Resources and planning will be shared.  In addition a series of parent programmes will be run from the libraries with the intention being to capacitate and empower parents to develop their children.  There is a particular emphasis on special needs as CSD’s recent research showed that there is little support given to parents and teachers with learners who have a developmental lag. The Toy library will be used by the St Mary’s aftercare group and run by one of their facilitators.  All of this falls within the Rhodes University’s Vice Chancellor’s project that is aiming to uplift education in Grahamstown.

Toy Library Launch