I have recognised that now I am not at forest school every week I am not moving around as much or getting as much exercise, are you the same? I have therefore been thinking of the activities that we do at Forest school that get us moving. At The Hideaway we love the humble stick so this week your challenge is to create a stick themed olympic games. You can try the idea's below or maybe you can create some of your own?
First thing we need to do is collect a range of sticks, long sticks, short sticks, thick sticks and thin sticks and order them by size.
I am going to give you some tips on what games to play and the best type of stick needed for each game.
Remember when playing with sticks you can accidentaly hurt yourself or others. When at forest school we always ask that when you are walking with your stick amongst others that you hold the top of the stick and the bottom of the stick is pointing down to the ground. When playing the following games always make sure you are standing in an open space.
When thinking about sticks and the olympics the first idea I had was running relay races with your family. Select a short, thick stick to be your baton and run towards a member of your family with your arm out stretched for them to take the stick and run to the next person or finish line. Why not time yourselves and see if you can beat your own record.
If you have a long, strong stick then you can try the pole vault. Hold on tightly to the top of your stick. Push the end of the stick down into the ground and jump, using the stick to push you a little further. Why not measure or mark with a smaller stick how far you have jumped.
If you have a wide open space and no one else in front of you then you can try throwing the javelin. Choose a long, thin stick. Hold the stick towards the back third of the stick, hold it horizontally over your shoulder with one hand then push your hand forward and release and see how far your stick/ javelin has travelled. You can try throwing into a container or you can measure the distance you have thrown and compare to other members in your family.
Now you might like to pretend you are on a horse and take part in the equastrian olympics. Lay out all of your sticks in an obstacle course. Each stick is going to be a jump for you and your horse to get over, so make sure you space them out. Then mount your horse (you can make a hobby horse stick!) and time how long it takes you and your horse to jump each stick.
If you have some ribbon, laces, string or wool you can make a ribbon stick. Tie your material to the end of a stick that is about the same size as your arm and then choreograph a rythmic gymnastics routine to music, using your ribbon stick to make different shapes, moving low and high, fast and slow.
Using lots of small sticks tied together you can make a few sailing boats and race them against each other or you can get one long stick and ask for a sheet that you can attach as a sail to make your own sailing boat. You can also use some long sticks to make paddles so you can row the racecourse.
I hope you have lots of stick fun this week. As always I look forward to seeing all your photographs of the activities that you try.
This is the last activity blog we will be posting for a while. As the government talks about the children moving back to school we have a lot to consider, plan and prepare for our after school clubs and possibly holiday clubs returning.
You can however continue to recieve weekly themed activity ideas to your inbox with a private video link of Vicki our forest school leader taking you through a virtual Hideaway forest school session. If you would like to sign up for a weekly activity for 7 weeks, for just £35 for the whole family, then please click here.
Thank you again for all your lovely support over the past 8 weeks, we look forward to seeing you all again soon!