All of the games are great fun for anyone involved and many parts of the National Curriculum are relevant and can be achieved whilst playing them.

Marine Creature features.

Equipment: lots of imagination!

Time: 15-20 minutes.

Ask the children to go back into the small groups that they were in for beach art.

Explain about all the creatures they have seen.

Ask them in their groups to go away (somewhere close) and decide what creature they want to be. They have to create their creature by combining their bodies and act out the movements and behaviour of the animal.

You can advise / help as they rehearse.

Then bring all the groups back together.

Ask one group at a time to come and perform their drama piece- acting out their creature.

The rest of the groups have to guess what they are in the usual fashion – by putting their hands up (but they will invariably just yell it out!)

Unnatural Nature trail at Clennon valley.

Equipment: collect rubbish- coke cans, plastic, sweet wrappers, crisp packtes, plastic bottles, tin cans also use pepper pots and other everyday used household objects.

Time: 15-20mins

Before the children arrive go to Clennon valley and hide (but not too well) all the pieces that you have collected. Hang things from branches of trees, put things in the grass or in bushes.

Get the children into small groups.

It is a competition for the group to find as many of the unnatural objects as they can. They are to write down all of the ones that they find.

This then promotes discussion- how many thought that a coke can was natural or didn’t notice it... talk about the pollution of waste, how animals get trapped in things and die etc.

Bring in the idea of recycling, ask the children how they recycle, give them a few simple ideas that they can take away with them to encourage recycling in their home.

Scavenger Hunts

Sheets have already been made up and these can either be used as they are or altered for specific scavenger hunt activities. Give the children a sheet (one per group) and take them out to the beach. They have to find as many of the objects on the list as they can. Walk alonmg the beach with the children pointing out things of interest such as birds, shells etc. Offer advice for some of the clues- only when asked!!!

Marine Mobile Madness

This activity can be used with the scavenger hunt. The children can use what they collected on the beach to ahng off their mobiles. Otherwise material is collected beforehand from the SCRAP store. Get lots of wool and something that can be used as the mobile structure- you can use wood, plastic or wire hoops. Let you imagine go wild!

Seashore Jewellery

This activity can also be done after the scavenger hunt. It is also useful to collect a lot of shells with holes in them beforehand, and supply lots of wool / string. Let the children design their own jewellery, adding on shells they found and anything else. Assist the children if they ask, or just make your own!

Beach Music

Material also needs to be collected for this, but anything can be used. A few examples are listed below.

Assist the children in making their own instruments, then get the children to create a short musical piece in their groups, and perform it to the whole group at the end. They can be influenced by noises that they have hard whilst on the beach.

And...

Who Eats Who. (food chain games).

Who’s my Mum? (Plankton games).

Animal Detectives.

...and many more!

We are always updating and developing our innovative activities and we are willing to run them in any weather throughout the year.

Give us a call today to find out how we can customise your trip.