This year’s parade felt HUGE… we had soooo many lovely mummies, daddies, grandmas, grandads, aunties and uncles join us and we are so grateful they came out to spread cheer to the village as part of our huge Jolly Family

Our children did us proud and it was great to bring Easter joy to our local community as we waved and jingled bells and wished passersby ‘Happy Easter!’ and gathering together with Woodlesford School’s nursery class to sing a few Easter songs together was great. They waved us along our route from the school grounds as we all paraded past.

We also met another fabulous lady along the way who came out to cheer us on but had also decorated her fence and made our oldest children an Easter gift too. The lovely Lisa had lovingly and cleverly decorated a shell for our children and they loved choosing one to take home and I know they will be treasured…. So a HUGE thank you to her for taking the time to make these for our Free-Flow children, it was incredibly kind of her

We paraded on to the park and we gathered in a HUGE circle on the green and sang our Easter songs to each other. Then the Free-Flow children left everyone else to either go for a further walk around or a play on the park whilst they paraded on to Midland House.

At Midland House we loved to be reunited with our friends again and we sang songs together and gave them our Easter hamper and we also handed out mini chocolate eggs and chicks from our baskets.

We had a drink and a cheeky biscuit before heading back to the park for a play. Our lovely friends at Midland House also had a treat for our children as they had a little Easter bag of treats to take home and some stickers for them and Hazel also presented us with £10 to buy something nice for nursery… so our children will be choosing something soon!

Enroute to the park we saw the ‘Woodlesford in Bloom’ volunteers busy planting up pots around the village and we wished them a ‘Happy Easter’ and thanked them for all their hard work in making our village so beautiful. We also told them we’d been out litter picking as we’re trying to do our bit to keep the village beautiful too and they were impressed!

We had a play in the park and enjoyed the lovely weather we’d had this morning before walking down the road back to Jollies.

We were super lucky when we got back as we had a brilliant surprise waiting for us all…. The Easter Bunny had hopped on in whilst nursery was empty and had left us all an egg!! The pesky rabbit had knocked over a pot of paint on the way in, but we didn’t mind as we simply followed his painty footprints to find our chocolatey treat!!! so we soon forgave his messiness!!!!

Thank you everyone for supporting us!! Our children were AMAZING and made us so very proud and we thank Team Jollies, our families, Chicken Megan (who led the parade brilliantly!!), Woodlesford School nursery, our friends at Midland House and everyone else who was part of today’s fun for helping us build this important sense of community… it means a lot to us all. Thank you all for being part of it xxxx

Imogen’s hair isn’t just for Christmas you know!!

She’s looking EGGcellent ready for our 2026 Easter Parade and we are all officially EGGcited!!! xxxx

Our outdoor redevelopment continues and our new flooring got delivered late yesterday afternoon; so our children swung into action and got busy helping Sian and the other very kind and helpful Team Jolly members who volunteered to help move the flooring around from the gate to the other side of our garden.

It was HARD work but our children loved it! They showed perseverance and determination as they went backwards and forwards pushing wheelbarrows and carrying containers and they emptied them out where it needed to go.

This kind of ‘heavy work’ is actually really beneficial for children to be involved in, as it helps them remain calm and focused too, so it was a win/win situation for everyone!!

It’s brilliant when we work as a team to reach a shared goal and it’s also so important for our children to care for our environment and help make it, and keep it, the best it can possibly be… but above all it was SUCH FUN!!! xxxx

We are LOVING our outdoor area!!!!! We love the freedom of having the ability to move equipment and resources around to create the space we need to truly follow our children’s current interests and support the development of their skills as they learn through their play….

xxxx

Thank you to our whole Jolly Family for being awesome and helping raise £126.31 for Comic Relief!!

You looked amazing in red, you baked and bought and explored all things red as we all did something amazing together to help others!!!!

Have a wonderful weekend lovely Jolly people xxxx

This afternoon Kirstan and I took a little group from Free-Flow outside into the Jolly carpark armed with grabbers and bin bags and we searched for litter and carefully picked it up and placed it in our bags.

We then crossed the road and cleared the area of litter around the bug hotel and along the station wall.

Our plan is to reach the wider Woodlesford area so watch out for us having an impact upon our village environment as the Jolly Woody Litter Pickers Gang!!!

(Plus who knew that activities such as this make writing even easier as fingers get working and hands are strengthened, hand/eye coordination comes into play which helps with future reading and tracking and focus and determination are called upon to pick up the tiniest pieces of litter… plus what wonderful keepers of the planet we will all be as we learn to care for our environment!!) xxxx

A huge thank you to ‘Woodlesford in Bloom’ for our gorgeous pots and for all their hard work in helping to make our village so beautiful

These amazing volunteers bring a smile to our faces when we see all these beautiful blooms around reminding us all that spring is sprung!!! Xxxx

We had a lovely time taking a hamper of Easter goodies to our friends at the Memory Cafe held at The Midland today!

Our children were super sensible on the walk there and back and they were so very careful when we had to briefly walk next to the very busy main road.

We played Easter snap, we watched the train travelling around the track near the ceiling (this was BRILLIANT!!!) and we had a satsuma, a cheeky chocolate biscuit and a drink of water.

We drew pictures for our friends there and added some lovely Easter stickers before handing them out to them all.

Someone VERY special was in the pub too… Emily was there with her family having coffee with her beautiful new baby girl and she came over to say hello to us all and we were beyond excited to see her!!!!

On the way back we stopped for a play in the park and a run around and the children wowed the grownups with their climbing skills as they were super confident on the very high equipment!

Afterwards we walked past everyone coming out of school and we spotted Pam, the lovely lollipop lady, so we went over to say hello and chatted about how she helps keep children safe when crossing the road and we looked at her lollipop sign and read the word ‘STOP’ and we chatted about her high vis coat, and how it was similar to our high vis vests, and why we wear them. She told us what she does each day and how she stops the traffic to enable everyone to cross.

Pam is a superstar and has been keeping children safe crossing the road for the past 28 years…

What a brilliant afternoon we all had and we timed it perfectly too, as James’ yummy soup was waiting for us just as we walked back into the building!! xxxx

Seeing as today is Global Recycling Day our children considered caring for our world in a variety of ways. From sharing books about recycling, rescuing the sea creatures by removing the plastic from the ‘sea’ in the water tray outside using tongs, exploring recyclable materials and experimenting by building and creating with them, (lots of lovely mathematical language was also used as they compared sizes and shapes, used positional language and vocabulary such as ‘more’ etc too) to looking at the creatures living in the bug hotel over the road from Jollies (as our children are also ever so slightly obsessed with mini beasts at the moment!!) and discussing how this hotel had been cleverly created by using recycled materials such as broken bricks and pieces of wood!!

Our children are very aware of recycling in their every day Jolly lives as they regularly check which bin to place things in and we reuse materials for our crafts and models etc) but today was an extra chance to bring this to the forefront of their minds again…. xxxx