We have just finished our first week of holiday clubs with our awesome group of young people!
We met at Parkfield House on Monday for a great day of ‘get to know you’ fun, with sport and nature games outside and plenty of colouring and Lego indoors for those who preferred things a bit more quiet. On Tuesday we had a visit from Hannah who helps to run the Walled Garden community project and she soon had the children busy planting, clearing vegetation and creating art in a shady patch of the garden.
We went to Treacle Valley on Wednesday and had a great day exploring the woods, making smelly cocktails, playing Kubb and learning about birds of prey, and on Thursday we were back at Parkfield where – with a nod in the direction of our founder Kev – we had a ‘Knights, Castles and Princesses’ day making all kinds of amazing props out of cardboard.
This year we have a greater focus on healthier eating and we have revised all our menus with healthier food at the core. We have also introduced ‘Fruit of the Day’ to encourage children to try fruits they may not have had before: this week we have have had fresh pineapple, cherries, peaches and watermelon- which was the number one favourite! We have followed this up with some recipe ideas for each fruit which the families have taken home to try. We’re also looking forward to a couple of visits from Beth from Safer Sustainable Travel Torbay who is going to bring her smoothie bike down for the children to try out on Monday!
The children have been amazing in the heat and have got involved in everything we have offered. The feedback has been amazing; one of our parents said that our holiday clubs are their child’s number one activity of the whole year and that they look forward to the holidays so that they can come and see us. We have also seen some amazing progress in other children who often come to us quite anxious but soon start to make friends and join in group games.
That’s week one down anyway – roll on week two!
