My first time leading a birthday party for Derbyshire Wildlife Trust! I had 12 five year olds but they all came with both parents and a sibling and all the adults stayed so there were a lot of people and it was a hectic afternoon, but the parents were happy and the children had a lot of fun. After the actual party, I had to tidy up the kit and classroom of course so I am shattered!
@overalvandaan@creativelyunique
We just do outdoor play really. I lead the group to the outdoor classroom, the children find the fairy cards pictured and then find others with the same card, so we end up with 4 'teams' - elderberry fairies, blackberry fairies, beech nut fairies and hawthorn fairies (there's a bit of info about each type of fairy on larger cards to read). Once we're in teams I show the group some evidence of fairies collected in the woods - e.g. a fairy hairbrush (alder cone), a fairy cup (acorn cap) and then the children go and see if they can find any evidence for themselves. Having far superior imaginations to us grown ups, they're pretty good at that.
They also find a message (planted by me!) from the fairies telling them that the fairy village was destroyed by wind and rain and they could do with some help building a new one. It also mentions looking after the fairies friends. So, we all build a new fairy village - lots of mini shelters with soft moss for beds and whatever else the children think of and then to finish we make a butterfly feeder (to look after butterflies, friends of the fairies ;) !
Then it's back to the classroom for party food and birthday cake before I get to do the clearing up! All good fun.
@roachling that sounds amazing! I will definitely be looking to see if our local wildlife trusts do something similar. We have fairy houses in our local wood which I have inspired a couple of the children's books I have written so I love the idea of a woodland fairy party and my kids would love that too!
September 28th, 2016
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We just do outdoor play really. I lead the group to the outdoor classroom, the children find the fairy cards pictured and then find others with the same card, so we end up with 4 'teams' - elderberry fairies, blackberry fairies, beech nut fairies and hawthorn fairies (there's a bit of info about each type of fairy on larger cards to read). Once we're in teams I show the group some evidence of fairies collected in the woods - e.g. a fairy hairbrush (alder cone), a fairy cup (acorn cap) and then the children go and see if they can find any evidence for themselves. Having far superior imaginations to us grown ups, they're pretty good at that.
They also find a message (planted by me!) from the fairies telling them that the fairy village was destroyed by wind and rain and they could do with some help building a new one. It also mentions looking after the fairies friends. So, we all build a new fairy village - lots of mini shelters with soft moss for beds and whatever else the children think of and then to finish we make a butterfly feeder (to look after butterflies, friends of the fairies ;) !
Then it's back to the classroom for party food and birthday cake before I get to do the clearing up! All good fun.
There are various themes to choose from and I'm sure your local wildlife trusts would do similar parties - http://www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/discover-learn/parents/birthday-parties/party-themes
By the way, I'm not on commission or anything for promoting the wildlife trusts, I just like what they do!