Outdoor Stay and Play 

Our exciting, incredible and thoroughly enjoyable under five stay and play is back for summer every weekday morning. Grab your sun hats, a bottle of lotion as we bring a slice of Alicante to Charlton Park. 

The safety and welfare of families, staff and volunteers is our top priority, so we kindly ask that all families adhere to the safety measures we have implemented, so that we can ensure the safest experience possible for everyone.

We recommend that you read this information carefully to understand everything you need to know before you visit, what to expect when you visit and how to book.

Find out more about your new outdoor stay and play and how we are working hard to keep everybody safe:

When will we reopen?

Bookings are time and date specified only and booked only online. 

Opening times

Monday to Friday 10am – 12pm term time only.

Who can visit

10 individual households in total for each session – a household will consist of only one adult and children under five who are from the same household or family. This does not include professional childcare providers. 

Cancellation

Please let us know the day before if you can't attend or as soon as you can, non attenders may be unable to book tickets for future sessions. 

Your arrival

Please do be patient with us as we take your whole households temperature and check you in. If anyone in your household has a temperature higher than 37.8 degrees Celsius you will not be admitted.

By entering our premises and signing in you are confirming your whole household has not had any signs or symptoms of Covid in the last five days.

Our facilities

• Toilets are available inside and a strict one household, one way system is in place. This will mean when one person needs to go, the whole household needs to go with them.
• Baby changing facilities will be available in the toilets.
• We will ask you to wipe toilet, basin, changing tray and door handle after use with the wipes provided.
• The tuckshop is closed and food and snacks are prohibited, with the exceptions of breast and bottle.

Staying safe

• Face coverings for adults are mandatory in the building.
• We’ve added additional signage to remind staff, families and volunteers of social distancing and handwashing guidelines.
• Additional hand sanitiser points have been implemented around the play area and adults will be responsible for children hand sanitising between using each new play equipment or undertaking new activities..
• Regular cleaning will be carried out of toys and equipment and we ask the children do not bring toys (including scooters and bikes) into the grounds.
• Please avoid touching anything including the climbing frames and toys unless you are under five, this includes others not in your household including children.
• Please do not visit if you are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 or have any underlying health conditions that may put you at risk. If you are vulnerable in any way, it is your responsibility to make the right choice for yourself and others around you. Please follow the advice given at https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

Navigating the Big Red Bus Club

• Entrance and exit into play sessions will be staggered to avoid congestion at the front gate and signing in station.
• There will be a one way route through the building to access toilets.
• Only the outdoor areas is available for play.
• Please keep an eye on the floor for spaces to wait before entering the pinch points of the gate, toilets and hand sanitiser stations.

The guidelines are changing on a regular basis and we are following them closely and will keep working hard to react to any changes as quickly as we can.

Booking 3 EASY STEPS

1 Read these information above - if you need help or to clarify anything email us [email protected] 

2 Preregister your household contact details https://www.thebigredbusclub.com/outdoor_stay_and_play

If you can also print out and bring along the signed paper registration and rules of the club on your first visit that would be great. But don’t worry, we have spares when you arrive. Paper user form (word) >>

3  Online booking on https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/outdoor-stay-and-play-tickets-148895190523

Throughout booking, signing up and signing into the club you will repeatedly be asked for your contact data and personal details our Privacy Policy can be found here https://www.thebigredbusclub.com/privacy

A huge thanks to City Bridge through London Funders for thier support.

We were definitely blown away today, not only by the story but with the dancing that went on today. Lizzie from Global Fusion Music came to show us some dance moves, which everyone enjoyed. Our story was about the Antarctic, so we had some lovely blue ribbons which we could wave about like the water, and then we pretended to be whales! But had some time before the story, where we put on some funky music and danced around! We had the cobwebs of half term to shake off! 

We had a very interesting morning at Play Plus. Our Paramedic friend came a week early, so to fit into our theme of clothes he showed us some of the uniform he wears when he is working, we tried on his helmet, (which is actually quite heavy) and Hi Vis jacket, and we used a thermometer in our ears to see what our temperature was. The adults also became a little competitive when having their blood pressure taken. 

This morning was all about our emotions, we looked at happy faces and sad faces and we had a fun time playing with our emotion dice and then copying the face. 

We had some counting fun today at Play Plus. One Mole Digging a Hole by Julia Donaldson, is all about numbers and counting, so we did lots of different activities involving numbers. 

My personal favourite, and yes the kids enjoyed it too, were some squishy bags, with numbers underneath, so you can draw the numbers. 

If you want to make these at home, it's really easy. Put about 5 tablespoons of washing up liquid in a ziplock bag. It's important that its a bag that has a closing at the top so it doesn't all seep out. The bags I used were from Ikea. We also added a bit of glitter. We taped some numbers to the table, and then taped the bags over the top. Do be sure to add a lot of tape! The kids loved moving the liquid around and making shapes. All the adults had a go too! 

We also did some digging, I bought a bag of soil and added some tools, not only did we do some digging, but one of the children started making mud pies! Yum! 

I also put put some pom poms and tweezers, we were able to count the pom poms into different bowls. 

Our special guest was Claude from Global Fusion music and we were able to drum along to 1,2,3,4, Once I caught a fish alive and 5 little ducks. 

Come along next week, as we investigate patterns and our friends from Animal Days Out are coming with some furry creatures. Hope to see you there. 

We had another great morning today. Mainly we were getting excited about our Christmas Party on the 21st December (more details to follow), but we also enjoyed making animal noises and dancing like animals.

We had such a great session today, we had lots of new faces and it was great to welcome back some old friends.

Our story today was Choo Choo clickety clack, by Margaret Mayo and Alex Ayliffe. It's all about the sounds vehicles make and we had great fun discovering each sound and matching them with the story. 

The morning was spent exploring shapes, especially those we can find on cars and lorries.

We also made shapes in shaving foam, which was very messy fun! 

Chris From Global Fusion came today, it was his first time here, but the kids really enjoyed his session. We sung about all the different things we do at the Big Red Bus and played some amazing instruments as we sang 'I am the music man, I come from far away'. The children all joined in brilliantly and after one of them pretended to be Chris! 

Next week we are discovering more sounds, but this time Animal Sounds and making some musical instruments, so come along for some shakerific fun! 

Local kids put their baking skills to the test today as they tried out the Big Red Bus Club’s new mud kitchen designed and created for us by the great volunteers at Men in Sheds.

A huge range of delights worthy of The Great British Bake Off were made, including worm spaghetti, leaf mould pastries and mud cakes.

Hours of fun was had as lucky kids took part in a volunteer preview day to test out our great new outdoor resource.

As regulars to the Big Red Bus Club know, our summer term will see a return of our Free Friday gardening club and this mud kitchen will be a great addition to our garden and external play spaces.

A regular user of the Big Red Bus Club, Oscar Massand, aged two and eight months, said’

“I enjoy playing in the mud kitchen and mixing leaves”.

It’s donations like these from Men in Shed’s and Mears, who donated the sink, which means we can stay free and open to all.

Thank you.