Wild Animals Session

This month's theme at our local HE group was wild animals.
There were about 5 families who are all regulars. It was a lovely sunny day so much of the time was spent playing out.

Activities on offer were making paper elephants....

....finding where in the world each animal lived on a giant world map...

...play 'Which animal am I?'. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the lovely lift-the-flap poster that one of the other mum's made with a series of questions using a tree diagram to find the answer.

Outside, they could meet with some real ducklings and learn about wild ducks...

...listen to a story & play a team general knowledge game using Brainbox Safari.

If you want to know how to make paper elephants too, they were inspired by this video.



Other resources for studying wild animals:
masks
spotter sheets
NGkids
Animals on Activity Village
Elephant unit study and lapbook
BBC Bitesize variation - the variation worksheet has a simple tree diagram

Games Expo

Yesterday, we went to Birmingham NEC for the Games Expo.

I am very fortunate in that Number 1 Son and his fabulous girlfriend organised the whole day for us. They booked train tickets, sorted out travel times and tickets to the event too. All I had to do was get me, Boykin and The Girl up at 6am to get to the train for 7.30. Luckily, I did it :) Just!

It was our first games expo and I was surprised at how many people were there. I didn't realise that board games were so popular. We were also surprised at how many people were there dressed up in sci-fi and fantasy costumes. After having recently spent a fair few hours watching The Big Bang Theory on Netflix, I half expected to see Sheldon et al at any moment ;)

It was fun playing giant versions of games we'd never played before, Yeti was a favourite. I quite liked the look of giant Ticket to Ride as well :) There were so many different games that I reckon I could've found a game to go along with every project we have ever done or could possibly ever do :)

Personally, I love all the wooden games and wooden storage systems and I think that dice rolling towers are a fab idea.

We decided that we all want a games table with cup holders and a cover so that you can keep your games out to finish later - there'd be no piling up of papers on that!

If you like playing games, its well worth going, Family tickets aren't that expensive and the train station is just a few minutes walk away. Plans are already afoot to go next year with costumes and more money :)

Games we liked