Hello,
Please find below some news about our winter fair and winter shop, as well as some great local charities that we support.
Dates for your diary:
Friday 19th November: Y5 Cake sale
Friday 10th December: Winter Fair
You will find the minutes of our last meeting here. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 24 November to organise the Winter Fair (location or zoom tbc).
Thank you to everyone who ordered cards through our APFS Holiday Card Project, we raised over £200 for the school! The cards are expected to arrive at the school around 22 November.
WINTER FAIR
FROGS is organising a Winter Fair after school on 10th December. Due to Covid, the fair will have to take place outdoors, so we might need to come up with different ideas for the stalls this year to beat the cold.
Each class is in charge of one stall, so please get your thinking caps on and let us know by 24 November what your class would like to help organise.
Traditionnally stalls have included things such as decorating gingerbread men; decorating Christmas jumpers; a teddy tombola and a present wrapping stall. We also usually sell hot drinks and cakes, this year a parent is also kindly offering to cook some vegetarian food for us.
Other ideas for stalls: an obstacle course in the garden with tinsels and bells; a snow globe bouncy castle; winter-themed ring toss games; ice fishing game; guess the number of baubbles in the jar...
The fair usually has a Santa’s grotto, this year we are thinking of doing some storytelling sessions with Mrs Santa instead of a traditional grotto. If you have any other ideas, or would like to help organise this (or decorate Mrs Santa’s lounge!) please let us know.
Once we have your stall ideas we will set up a Volunteer sign up sheet so everyone can see what needs doing and how they can help.
Plan B: In the event that new regulations prevent us from organising a fair, we’re hoping to organise a rainbow raffle instead (like this one for example) next year, to bring colour into wintertime. For this, each class could provide small gift and food items to create a colourful hamper.
WINTER SHOP
We are finalising our new products for FROGS’ winter online shop, with T-shirts, tote bags and pencil cases in the works. In the meantime, Christmas trees are available to order from our online shop (delivery is 10th December); we’ll be also leaving some forms in the office for those who prefer paying cash.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED: We’re also hoping to sell some wreaths; a florist friend is kindly helping us by sourcing plain pine wreaths and decorations from the flower market, but we need volunteers to put everything together around the 2-3 December. If you can spare a couple of hours then , please let us know by signing up for this via this link.
If you would like to help in any other way, for example by supplying some homemade products to sell, please let us know as soon as possible! Thank you.
HELPING EACH OTHER
FROGS supports the Hackney Food Bank and the Winter Toy Appeal:
• Food bank collection: One of our volunteers is kindly offering to drop your donations to our local foodbank. There is a box in the hallway leading to the KS1 playground in which you can leave your donations, as well as a list of the most needed items. If easier, you can also donate money directly to the food bank. If you need help from the food bank, register for foodbank vouchers here.
• Winter Toy Appeal: If you can, please support this excellent local initiative which gives free new toys to children who really need them. Every year it benefits some children at Grasmere. There’s lots of different ways to help, have a look at their page for more information.
FROGS are also planning to support the school for the national Children’s Mental Health Week, 7-13 February 2022, by organising an event and buying new books on health and mental health for the library. Do you have any ideas on what we could organise to promote our children’s mental health? Do you know someone in that field who could do a special assembly? Any fun activity that would engage them on the subject? Let us know!
Thank you and take care,
FROGS