Penguins – January and April

There are lots of penguin themed days (Penguin Awareness Day – January 20th and National Penguin Day 24th April to name a few) so you could have fun with this.  It could also link in with a winter theme.

Here are some activities which are suitable for a range of age groups:

• Biscuits – (any age group) – Oreos, ready to roll icing, white chocolate buttons – these can be suitable for Vegan and Dairy Allergies too (just alter the white chocolate buttons to dairy free ones or use icing for the stomach)
• Colouring – (Anchors and Juniors) penguin
• Colouring – (Company and Seniors) – Here’s an adult colouring for the older ones – they will want some nice pens to do this adult colouring
• Wordsearch – (Older Juniors and Company/Seniors) – This uses the 17 recognised penguin breeds wordsearch
• A discussion (Company/Seniors) This could look at how penguins are similar to humans  – there are some ideas in this blog https://kevinswritingblog.weebly.com/e-portfolio-blog/penguins-and-humans
• Cartoons (Anchors and Juniors) such as Madagascar Penguins,. Here is a link to a trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y_kfWUCFDQ 
• Educational programmes (Juniors/Company/Seniors) such as short clips or Blue Planet.  Here is a short clip for Juniors or younger company. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8qilxaBR20

 

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British Food Fortnight – September/October

As last week was part of British Food Fortnight we had a British themed week. Here are some activities:

• We coloured British flags and spoke about our favourite British foods
• We watched this video clip of Pop Stars tasting British food https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wceR7Qr5bYA 
• We had a quiz about food Quiz
• We made cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off
• We ate tea and scones
• Coloured in this tea party adult colouring tea party
• We did this puzzle sheet too British Food Fortnight puzzles
• We talked about loyalty and also trying new things

Jeans and Genes

As it was Jeans for Genes Day https://www.jeansforgenesday.org recently we looked at Genetics and DNA with our Company Section group. Here are a few of the ideas we tried as well as using the resources on the website link above:

We had a quiz Genes and Jeans Quiz

Coloured in DNA dna

Tried this experiment looking at structures in plastic (link to structures in DNA) The Leakproof Bag – The Lab 

We designed our own Jeans jeans

We let the Anchors get in on the act by playing with a tray of cornflour and water and talking about how you can change structures

 

Flood

The current situation includes floods and water related issues around the world.  This is something very relevant in our area and as part of Hull City of Culture a theatre group SlungLow has been commissioned to produce a 4 part epic called Flood.  Part one is available online and part 3 on iPlayer.  Parts 2 and 4 are performed live.  Each part works as a series but also as a stand alone.  There are lots of themes that make for fabulous discussion points. This also links with the idea of refugees.  We were lucky enough to be invited with Company and Seniors to watch a rehearsal of the piece which is performed on a floating stage in a Dock, but here are some other  ideas to exploit this theme:

1: A puzzle based on the theme of the play puzzle flood

2: A quiz quiz flood

3: Show photos of the local area when flooded and use as a discussion starter.  How does it change lives? What is the impact etc?

4: Show this clip of the Flood part 1 and predict what happens next. There is an audio described version available too https://www.hull2017.co.uk/discover/article/watch-flood-sea-part-one/ 

5: Watch part 3 of Flood and discuss – there are lots of emerging themes of religion, power, saving people, hope etc http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b091wx8t/performance-live-flood-to-the-sea

6: Make origami cups and try drinking from them cup

7: We also made use of the story of Noah and the rainbow as a symbol of promises.

8:  Thinking of the idea of refugees and being stranded etc, we did the what would you take on a desert island.  Here is a link with some ideas: https://www.skyscanner.com/news/10-must-have-items-when-trapped-deserted-island

9: Finally with Seniors/Amicus etc we played My First, My Last, My Everything.  Everyone has to say the first song they bought, the last and the one that they couldn’t live with out.  This could be applied to other topics such as junk food, sweets, friends etc….

Lego Batman

We held a Lego Batman activity day this week and included the following activities:

• Watching the film – the easy one!
• Making Batman masks (thanks to http://www.redtedart.com for the template) LEGO-Batman We laminated the mask and then attached it to a lolly stick
• We had a colouring competition using these pictures lego colouring
• We built Lego Scenes and had to explain how they related to Lego Batman
• We also designed our own Lego Superhero characters using this template (this was a take home activity and the parents sent these back to us using social media helping us to interact with families)
  

  
• We had a quiz based on the film too
• We played Bingo using these cards (these are not mine but found on the internet) and used square block lego pieces to mark off the items called.  We played for lines and 4 corners. LEGOBatmanBingoBoards
• We had fun with these puzzle sheets  BatmanDayActivityPages thanks to www.DCkids.comwww.DCkids.com
• We played the traffic lights running game based on a Lego theme using characters from the film
• The younger children played a mime game pretending to be characters from the film too.

St George’s Day – April

St George’s Day means fun for all ages.  We did activities with all age groups for this celebration.

The younger ones designed their own shields using these templates shields and watched this video clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8rVFPpZ-Q . There is also a colouring picture here dragon.

The Juniors watched the same video clip but made these dragon themed planes, which they enjoyed flying too: dragon plane.  We also listened to this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzz5r2BO1xA and some of them joined in!  The Juniors made posters at the end of the night to show what they had learned.

With the older ones we did a quiz:  We used it as a multiple choice with the Juniors but as a standard quiz with Company and Seniors England Quiz.  We also looked at the contradicting stories of St George in this document St George.  We used this prayer too:

Dear God,
We are not as brave as we would like to be.
We remember the times when we have run away,
or got angry or panicky,
or turned our back when you wanted us to speak the truth and hold firm.
We know you love us and want us to be our best selves,
so we ask you to wipe out those times
and to fill us with your peace.
Help us to know that you are always at our side
so that we don’t need to be afraid.
Show us how to overcome evil with good,
like Jesus did, and like St George. Amen

 

Comic Relief/Red Nose Day – March

Comic Relief has just been and gone but here are some ideas for next time it comes round.

The obvious one is a good old puzzle sheet with a design your own nose element, so here goes: rednoseday .  Following that another old favourite is a quiz.  We used it as multiple choice with the Juniors and as a ‘normal’ quiz with Company Section: Quiz  There are lots of resources at http://www.comicrelief.com too.

With the older ones we baked AND decorated buns and the younger ones just decorated the cheap ASDA/Tesco ready done buns.  As Comic Relief seems to be linked to Maltesers this year, it seemed like the perfect bun topping with a  blob of icing (some used red candy melts too – we bought these from Hobbycraft)!  One bun had even been eaten before I managed to grab this photo.

Also following on from the maltesers idea we played games with Maltesers and straws.  We raced them across tables, dribbled them around cones (using straws not feet) and did the sucky thing to carry them around obstacles whilst we did team games.  AND of course we ate plenty of them too.

The final thing was wearing red and red themed drinks, treats and sweets to share.  Overall we had a lovely evening.  Hope you did too!