07/10/2021

Free half term activities

October half term is almost here and we’re all looking forward to a break from the home schooling routine.

If your children are at home this half term, you might be looking for things they can do to keep them busy.

Barracudas has some great ideas for how to keep them entertained. Take a look at these varied home activities for half term:

Stick Creatures

Equipment needed

• Branch/stick
• White acrylic paint
• Paint
• Wool
• Glue

Find a fallen branch or stick with distinctive features, such as knots or forks.
Clean the stick, and if the bark is loose, remove it.
Cover the stick with white acrylic paint and let it dry(The base coat will make your final colours much brighter).
Paint your creature.
Add wool hair and tails with glue.

Bucket Head

(2 player game)

Equipment needed

• 2 x buckets
• 5 x balls

One player holds a bucket upright on top of their head. The other has to bounce 5 balls into the bucket.
The player with the bucket may duck down and bend their knees to catch the ball but should not move from their spot.
The winner is the first to catch all 5 balls in their bucket!

Tree Tapestry

Equipment needed

• Sturdy, Y-shaped branch
• Coloured wool
• Wool needle

To make the loom, tie the end of a ball of wool near the base of the branch's fork. Wrap the wool once around one leg of the fork, then cross to the other leg and wrap the wool once around it. Repeat, until you reach the ends of the fork. Tie off the wool. In the picture this is the blue/green wool around the Y twig.
Next, thread a piece of wool that's about five times the length of the branch into a plastic wool needle.
Tie the end of the wool to the bottom-most thread of the warp. With the needle, pull the wool in and out of the warp. When you've used up the length of wool, tie another piece to the end and continue weaving. When you're done, tie the wool end to the warp or just tuck it into the tapestry.

Paper Tennis

(2 player game)

Equipment needed

• Several scrunched up paper balls
• 2 baking sheets
• 2 buckets

Using a scrunched up ball of paper, two players use baking sheets to hit the ball back and forth from start to finish post. This can be played both indoors and out.

To ‘score’ a point players must bat the ball into a bucket at the finish post. Once players have scored, it’s back to the starting post to try again. See how many points you can score in 5 minutes!

Woodland Pictures

Make a frame out of string and twigs.

Place your frame on the ground and create a woodland pictures using things you can find in the garden, like different shaped and coloured leaves, sticks and stones.

This should keep them busy this half term. We'd love to see how they get on so tag us in a photo of their creations on Facebook!

Looking for more activities to keep them entertained this half term? Join our Virtual Camp sessions on Facebook or Youtube.