Summer Holidays part 2

Other activities at Leading Edge included face painting...

...making masks from paper plates...

and singing.


From Warwick it was on to Devon for the second week. Here R has found something to read at Exeter Cathedral.


And in Nanny's kitchen A has found the Tupperware cupboard.

Summer Holidays part 1

The first week of our summer holiday this year was spent camping at Warwick School with about 900 other people for Leading Edge. Leading Edge is a week long event organised by the Baptist Union and Viz-a-Viz - who run an excellent children's programme for the whole week. The children had activities every morning, whilst there were Bible Studies and seminars for the adults; a variety of activities were arranged in the afternoons; and in the evenings there were celebration events. Here are a few photos from the week.

On one of the afternoons we went along to an African Drumming session - which the girls really enjoyed.

Thursday was left free all day so we took the chance to visit Warwick Castle (courtesy of Mr Tesco). Here R, A and I are about to begin the ascent of the tower - the carrier only got stuck once on the narrow spiral staircase. I think it was 530 steps.

This huge device is the Trebuchet. Here it has just been fired - you can see the fire ball on the left which will shortly be flung into the air as the arm comes over. To give you some idea of the size - the wheel at the base of the device is like a large hamster wheel - two men get it to the one this side, and two the other (the wheels are not quite twice the height of a man) and they run, making the wheels turn, which tightens the rope pulling the arm back.

Here S is trying to get her hands on someone's cream tea.

There's no way that sword is coming out

We don't normally trust S with a pair of scissors.

Warwick Castle - a great day out - worth a visit if you're in the area - and you can use Tesco vouchers to get in for 1/4 of the normal price.

What's the Hurry?

Banner

When it comes to making cards, scrap booking and other crafts - I'm not the person to speak to. All that sort of thing is best left to others, including my wife. So when it comes to planning craft activities for our Holiday Club I am often a sceptical on looker - wondering how these ideas are going to come together, within the time scale of each morning, and within our overall budget.

But one thing we have seen over the few years we have been running our holiday club is that all of the children enjoy the craft. Both the boys and girls really get in to it, whether they are at the bottom or top end of the age range.

This year one of the bright ideas was to make a banner, that would eventually be hung permanently within the church. The children would be given a felt square and letter, and various other bits such as small felt shapes and buttons which they would use to decorate their square.

We weren't really sure how well it would turn out - but the children loved it, and as you can see the result is amazing.

Now all that needs to be done is for all the squares to be sewn onto the backing material.