Griffith Play and Learn playgroup to host open day for ACT Children's Week

“There wasn’t much around the inner south, there was only one in Kingston and it had no vacancies,” she said.

Undeterred, she went about setting up her own playgroup in Griffith which started in July, operating out of the site of one of the first pre-schools in Canberra.

In the four months the playgroup has been running, more than a dozen families have been coming together and encouraging play.

“The building is left vacant during the week and I just fell in love with the gardens and all of the open space so I decided to set it up there,” Mrs Scully said.

Now the playgroup will be throwing open its doors to the public with an open day on October 26 as part of ACT Children’s Week.

While the growth of the playgroup has been steady since it started, Mrs Scully said she hoped for more children and their families to get involved.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to set up a second session sometime in the future,” she said.

The playgroup’s co-ordinator said a key difference between other similar organisations around the ACT was the focus on outdoor and unstructured play.

She said the focus was all about fostering creativity from an early age.

“We don't use traditional toys but we use materials that have been sourced from nature itself or we use ones from recycled materials,” Mrs Scully said.

“By doing that, it helps to keep the play as open as possible...and keep everything to the imagination.

“A lot of other early-childhood centres are designed for indoor play but not for outdoors.”

It may still be early days for the Griffith-based playgroup, but Mrs Scully has said the responses from parents and the children themselves have been overwhelming.

“The children have been completely engrossed. There have been some that have cried because they don’t want to leave,” she said.

Details: 9.30 to 11.30am, Wenesday, October 26, Griffith Play and Learn, Stoke Street Griffith