This Friday just gone we held our second stay over at Hackney Marsh Adventure Playground. In total 13 girls aged 7 to 14 stayed over and we had a wonderful fun time dancing, singing, playing games and cooking together. Unlike the boys stay over a fortnight ago the girls got into their PJ's early on and made the space comfortable and homely.
During the evening we did lots of girlie things together from nail art, spa face treatments and hairdressing.
Autumn has finally arrived at Hackney Marsh Adventure Playground. The leaves are falling, orange and yellow hues decorate the pathways, platforms and tree houses. The mild temperatures meant we still have plenty of activities happening outside from den building, decorating the tree house and at the end of the day 'murder in the dark' hide & seek team games.
Tuesday 1st November, Salt Dough Autumn Leaves:
This week we experimented with making salt dough autumn leaves. In the past we have made play dough which is a much loved activity. The children enjoy squeezing, shaping and modelling the dough but their items are never persevered. This time we followed a very simple salt dough recipe and added food colouring at the beginning in autumn shades. Salt dough is a cheap alternative to commercial clay based material and easy to make.
What you need:2 cups of plain flour, ½ cup of salt, 1 cup of water, food colouring, extra flour for rolling out.
Mix the flour and salt together and then add enough water to make a dough ball that is firm but not sticky. Add the water drop by drop until you get the right consistency. Knead the dough until its flexible then roll it out, on a floured board. The thickness should be approximately 1cm. Place the shapes on a foil-lined baking tray and cook in the oven at 120oC for 2 hours or leave to air dry for a few days turning occasionally.
Children rolled out their coloured salt dough. The next stage they pressed a real leave into the soft dough and finally cut around the shape. When the leaves have dried we will varnish then so they have a sleek gloss finish.
ROCKY ROAD TOFFEE APPLES-YUMMY!
With Bon-fire night just a few days away we made these delicious rock road toffee apples. These were really easy to make and lots of children took part in doing a task. We organized a small factory line, one person added the toffee, another person dipped the chocolate, someone else added the chopped up marshmallows and sprinkles were added just at the end. The only downside to this was that we had to wait for everything to cool down before we could tuck in!
Well worth the wait - mm, yummy!
BON-FIRE event
Ooh - a marshmallow tree!
This year we held our bon-fire event a day early and organized a number of fun things for the children to take part in. First, we had to get the fire going with the help of a few older children this didn't take long. A huge cook out was prepared and sausages, potatoes, soup and apple pie were all on offer.
Children earlier in the week helped Cat (playworker) to make a stuffed guy for the fire. A number of debates were had about what the face should be, if it was a girl or boy?
The guy was thrown on to the fire, with in minutes in went up in a ball of flamesto the delight of all who were watching!
Firework themed art work: Girls used their hands to flick and mix paint to depict the glowing night sky.
Children coloured and cut out animals, rockets, birds and people and attached them to the
suspended webs in our play hut
Festival of Lights, Diwali Wednesday 26th October 2011
Children made these fantastic festival lights. They were made from cardboard tubes, decorations, beads and glitter. The light inside was a small torch based candle.
Woodwork
A small group of children helped to saw down tree trucks in preparation for an open fire outside.
...more den building!
Loose parts building - lots of tropical trees were made by the children
FREAKY FRIDAY!
Here's one of the monster pumpkins we grew at the playground! It was picked early by mistake as a number of children thought it was a ball in the long grass! It still had 12 weeks to grow, imagine how big it would have got.
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