Rainbow Stop Playgroup, Markethill, Co. Armagh

Welcome

Welcome to Rainbow Stop Playgroup.


We are based in Markethill, Co. Armagh, a small village with a wonderful community. Our Playgroup has a number of funded, full-time places available for children in their immediate pre-school year, and we are part of the preschool standardisation programme, offering each child 4.5 hours of preschool provision per day. We endeavour to provide every child with a high-quality play-based learning experiences to support and progress development within all six areas of the preschool curriculum, which we follow within our setting.
We are registered with Armagh & Dungannon Health & Social Services Trust and we are also a member of Early Years - The Organisation for Young Children and Young People.


All our staff are highly skilled and qualified in Childcare and Education and we have an Early Years Specialist who supports our work. The playgroup provides a nurturing and caring environment where our dedicated staff support each child to learn through their curiosities, inquisitiveness and early childhood experiences. Our environment reflects structure to stimulate learning skills and imagination through teaching, creative play and physical activities, encouraging all children to achieve their full potential educationally, physically, socially and emotionally.

 

Facebook

✨️Open evening 2026/27✨️ Please contact the setting with any queries you may have or if there is anything further you would like to discuss. See you all soon 🌈
Little feet, do big things 👣 Recently our focus around gross motor development within physical learning has been to challenge and extend our capabilities. A lovely donation of new large outdoor equipment has provided the children with opportunities to progress their balance, stamina, co-ordination and core strength. The development of gross motor movements also support children with skills such as concentration, focus and engagement 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️ Last week we also had a fun music session with Gillian 🎵🎼 As Gillian played her clairnet the children identified their favourite nursery rhymes through the use of pitch and tone 👏 and afterwards all got a turn at pressing the buttons to explore how the sounds changed as they travelled through different parts of the instrument.
Sports Day action shots... 📸🏁 A massive well done to all the children who took part in our Sports Day fun and races, you all did fantastic. Huge thanks to all our supporters on the sidelines, it was lovely to see so many of you 🫶 We would like to give special thanks to Jonny Whiteside from Swifts, who gave up his time to join us this morning to complete lots of sports orientated activities and games with the children, and also to Lorraine and Sadie for all the resources they kindly organised and support they gave before and after the event ⚽️ Also to Joel's mummy for kindly making her fresh homemade scones for our refreshments table, they were amazing 😋 To Andrew and Chris at Hunter's who kindly supported us in organising a donation of ice cream for all the children and parents 🍦 and lastly to the Swifts Football Club for letting us host our event at Ashgrove this morning. What a way to kick start the Bank Holiday weekend 🙌 Thank you everyone ☀️
Little hands, caring for caterpillars... 🐛 Our four hungry caterpillars arrived this morning, commencing our new learning around life cycles. At carpet time today each child chose a name for our caterpillars and together we selected four. We would like to introduce you to Woody, Spider Man, Bat Man and Sofia. We are excited to explore this hands on learning around life cycles as we develop greater awareness of living things, while respecting and caring for animals as we handle them sensitively 🐛
Sports Day practice is well under way, we have had some very competitive groups of girls and boys this week all trying their best 👏👏 We enjoyed a sunny walk yesterday up to the football pitch to show the children where we will be hosting our Sports Day next Friday 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️ Everyone loved their walk and used great manners and listening when out and about 😀 We can't wait for race day, we hope the parents have been practicing too 🤣 Finishing of Friday with ice lollies is always the best 🍭
£529.65👏👏👏 What a community 🙌 Thank you to everyone who kindly gave to our big collection on Saturday, to Hunters for kindly hosting us and to all our wonderful helpers on the day. Especially the littlest ones who danced, sang and jingled buckets all day long. We are very grateful to you all. These funds go massively towards our new outdoor extension which we have been working hard on behind the scenes. Watch this space, we have very exciting things to come🎉
🌟Tomorrow🌟 https://www.paypal.me/RainbowPlaygroup Please pop by and say hi 👋 Hunters supermarket 9am-6pm
🌟£397.70🌟🎉 Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who joined us for our Easter Egg Hunt in Gosford, we are delighted to have raised the above amount with all your support. This goes directly back into our children's educational provision and resources 👏 to build them the best pre-school experiences we can give them ❤️ A massive thank you to everyone who helped make the morning a huge success, from coming along on the day to baking beautiful traybakes, collecting equipment, decorating and helping tidy up we are so grateful to you all. Thank you to everyone who came from near and far we are thrilled to say nearly 90 children completed our hunt, with many fantastic family memories made along the way 🫶 Thank you for sending us your photos from the morning, we hope you enjoy seeing them all below. You may have also seen some famous little faces in the newspaper this week, who surprised us by popping by on the morning 📰 📸 Thank you again to everyone 🌟
🌟 Our annual Big Collection 🌟 A shout out to our mighty Markethill and surrounding rural communities to support our Big Collection on Saturday 18th April in Hunter's supermarket. Please pop in store to see us and some of our little familiar faces you may know as well, or if you can't make Saturday and would still like to donate please use our link below. https://www.paypal.me/RainbowPlaygroup Our current fundraising is going largely towards our new outdoor extension as we have acquired additional land around the playgroup, and wish to extend our current outdoor play space. We are incredibly greatful to everyone for anyway in which you can support us to raise these vital funds. We look forward to seeing you in store on the 18th, you will find our collection buckets at the tills and exit door, we hope to see you all there 🌈