A Stay-At-Home Mom’s Complete Guide to Playgroups by Carren W. Joye provides a very practical and common sense guide to setting up and maintaining a playgroup.

It clarifies many of my misunderstanding about playgroup. First, I always thought playgroup is essentially a group for children to play. It could also be a mother centred group which provides an avenue for mothers to meet and interact while the children play in another room. And of course, the “all must have” attitude Singaporean like me would prefer the combination of both.

Then, I always thought playgroup should be very structured and fill with useful and purposeful activities. Must be seeing too much advertisements by the various RC, children care centre or kindergarten about how their playgroup will help to nurture a bright, confident and independent child. The playgroup is not a preschool, and it is meant to be relaxed and informal. So it might just be a session where mothers (or the primary caregivers) get together and mingle around, while the children engage in free playtime, with or without any other structured activity. One year old babies probably won’t be able to take part in structured activity like craft or colouring.

There are also suggestions on overcoming problems like unruly children, low attendance, hosting and useful ideas for setting up guidelines or rules and tips for craft and games sessions.

The Introduction and Chapter one already covered everything that I want to know, the rest of the chapters are just more detailed elaboration. Actually, most of its content can be found on the website onlineplaygroup.com. It is a very encourging book, I feel more confident in setting up a playgroup now.