Thursday 10 October 2013

Night owling.



The title of this post refers to my third job at work. Night Owls is the name of the paid for after school child care provision.
It runs from 3.20 to 5.29 pm ( summat to do with Ofsted regs I think - ie when the school gets a visit, they cannot judge us .)
It's my favourite time of my working day! The children are from all the classes and I love how I can be a little more relaxed and a lot more sociable.
Since I started, I've overheard a few saying how much better Night Owls is now!  ( I do have to say here, I AM bloody good at my job! )
So far, we've made a harvest sheaf of wheat and mice from the salt dough we made, we've baked cakes for the Macmillan coffee morning, we've chilled and watched the new DVDs I brought. We've made pom poms. We've transformed the old wooden table tennis bats into double sided puppets.
Planned activities coming up include Halloween owl cakes, Christmas decorating, parties and playing with the new toys I'm ordering with my colleague.

I'm asking for help here. Even though I'm brimming to overflowing with ideas, I always need more. The children are between five and eleven years old, though I'd say the average age is eightish for  the majority. It has to be pretty cheap and be maneagable for groups up to 40 at a time! Over to you!

8 comments:

  1. OOh now then I love a challenge - I'll do some planning and research and post a page full just for you xxx

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  2. You've probably already thought of these: themed weeks? Colour of the week. Scent of the week
    .

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  3. check out www.who-arted.com

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  4. We used to make bird feeders out of halves of coconut shells stuff with lard n seeds n stuff, or another is to make insect hotels for the winter I'm sure there are instructions online somewhere and they're dead cheap.
    I want to be an Owl ;-(

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  5. http://www.channel4.com/4homes/how-to/crafts/how-to-make-paper-birds

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  6. http://mericherry.wordpress.com/

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  7. http://mericherry.wordpress.com/

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  8. Sounds to me as if you are doing pretty well as it is but I'll see what I can come up with.
    40 is one big group...
    perhaps you should prepare a concert,show,play. I did Romeo and Juliet once for my esl kiddies class ....a snippet of the play of course and adapted totally. The balcony scene.........Romeo was done by the police (here it's municipal police who deal with traffic fines) who came in on his bike (the policeman that is) and fined Romeo for parking his bike under the balcony. Romeo didn't want to pay and less still because policeman was from the Capulet family....Juliet was patiently waiting singing "wherefor art thou Romeo" ect. The children invented it really as they went along I just gave them the text in English. They had so much fun. Everyone did something scenery,costumes,painting,etc etc and it cost very little. The parents loved it! Just an idea and not sure if it is viable for you. keep well

    Amanda :-)

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Many thanks for taking the time to read my words and respond with your own thoughts. I always try to reply so make sure you pop back to see!