Working in the Community
H Foster believes strongly in giving back to the community. As well as donating a box of soap to our local village school, Goring C of E, we also held a soap-making day at the Compton C E Primary School in Compton.
Michelle, along with an army of “mums/volunteers” arrived on the day, microwaves, jugs, and spoons in hand, ready to make soap for Mothers’ Day.
Supervised by their teacher Mr Schiffer-Harte, the children were split into groups on tables with a mum and a microwave per table. There were audible giggles when they saw the huge lump of soap we had to cut into small blocks. Luckily, many hands make light work, and everyone was able to take a turn with the soap cutter, meaning we were soon ready to start.
It was a very organised affair; a table would send the jug over to be filled with blocks of soap, before ferrying it back to their microwave. Their “mum” would pop it in and take it out every 20 seconds or so for stirring. Everyone had a turn stirring and when it was ready the fragrances and colours were added.
We experimented using different colours and fragrances. We filled the moulds halfway, letting a skin form, and then adding a different colour on top. Spraying the Isopropyl Alcohol was a highlight for some as it makes the bubbles on top disappear! Creativity was encouraged and we used lots of lovely describing language about what was happening, what we saw and how it smelled! This is such a wonderful activity to do with children, it definitely encourages independence and if they make a mess, it’s easy to clean – because it’s soap!
In the end, we made 100 bars of soap, which after 24 hours, the children packaged into brown paper bags that they had decorated and took them home to Mum. There was a lot of really good feedback from the mums the following week; they all loved the final product and even more so that their children had had such a good time making it.
We would like to thank Compton CE for letting us come and play for the morning. We had a lovely time with the children, they were impeccably mannered and really well behaved – they are such a credit to their teacher and their school.
