Get up and Glow

Packing for this weeks outdoor evening covered all eventualities. The first aid kit thankfully stayed tucked up in my bag needed, but the hot chocoltae was much appreciated in the cold.

It was the sort of evening when you need to keep active to stay warm, but we had lots of games to play. Starting with a balloon race. Each team passed a balloon over the hear of the first player, under the legs of the second and so on down the line. When the final player in line took the balloon they had to run to the front of the line to restart. It was a great warm up, made all the more fun by putting glowsticks inside the balloons so we could see them better in the dark.

The glowing balloons lent themselves well to some other games we'd more often play with balls too.

We ended the evening with a few rounds of untig, everyone had  just 10 seconds to find a hiding place before the untigger set off to find people. Some of the best hiding places we found by those who could manage to stay very still in the shadows.

Games Double Bill

 Tonight we decided to focus on games.

Most evenings we start with a few games, to get everyone moving and thinking. Tonight was no different, a few rounds of ball games, then a quieter game of Three Step Tag.

On person is blindfolded, the rest of the group then take 4 or 5 steps away. Once everyone is quiet the game begins. The aim is for the blindfolded person to make their way around the room, and try to tag another player. The rest of the players can move away, but they are only allowed to take three steps for the whole of the rest of the game. Once their steps are taken they can duck and dodge but must keep their feet still.

After a break for a drink and to catch up with what everyone had been doing over the week we used our craft time to make some more games equipment, and see how many ways we could use it.

First, some paper darts which are shot off the end of a straw. They were great fun but quite delicate. It took a bit of practice to be able to thread them back on the straw for another go.

We had a go at some target practice, and seeing how high and how far people could shoot them.

The second activity was making our own bats for a game of balloon tennis. The children came up with a  whole range of games using the bats and balloons. Both tennis and table tennis worked well. We had a group challenge of how long we could keep all the balloons in the air, several balloon and spoon races.

Welcome back

What a busy news circle, it sounds like everyone had lots of fun over the holiday.

This week we played a bit of a gusssing game, using only our sense of touch to try and work out what each object was. Do you think you could have worked them out?

Most people got them right, even working out what might be inside the tin.

We also had a go at making our own slime to play with. When it works you get a stretchy squishy ball a bit like silly putty.  There are lots of recipes on the internet, you can even add colour and glitter for even more fun. We stuck to a basic mix of glue and laundry liquid. A bit of research shows that Aldi's own brand has the right mix of chemicals to make the slime work.

We learned that it really needs PVA glue to work though, the test batch with PVA worked really well but the new bottle of white glue never quite set in the same way.

Glow Sticks in the woods.

Our last session of 2014 was a great one. Despite the rain during the day it held off for a few hours so we could really enjoy the woods. It was still damp and chilly though and the hot chocolate to warm up between games was defiantly appreciated.

The glow sticks were great fun and we used them in different ways in each game. We used the different colours to show our teams in some games, in others we had to sneak up on the base so it was extra important to hide your glow stick.





And now it's time to look forward to all the events which are being planned for 2015.

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Mark your place

Tonight our Elfins worked really hard on sewing their bookmarks. There was a lot of concentration, a touch of frustration at times and many many rethreaded needles but the results speak for themselves.

Campfire Evening

For a number of years now it's been our tradition to end each term with an outdoor evening. With the evenings drawing in but not yet too cold it's the perfect time of year for a camp fire.

 Thanks go to Wood Camping for letting us use their site, it's wonderful woodland with plenty of space for exploring. By the end of the evening people were already starting to think about a spring camping weekend.

This evening though was all about the fires. Everyone had a chance to have a go at lighting their own fire using the fire steels. It takes a bit of practice to be able to get a spark but soon each group had a small fire burning.

Then it was back to the main fire for a bit of cooking, pop corn and marshmallows today, and a few songs before it was time to head home.