Make sure your volume is on: "...water and nuts..."

Show transcript

Oh, Oh, there are so many… the drop dead best activity?

It has to be noisy! My favourite one for the kids would be a game called… I'm going to go for ‘Squirrels’ Nuts’ [love it] … so would you like a little outline on to Squirrels Nuts?

Okay, So the outline of Squirrels’ Nuts is based on how the acorn eventually transforms into the tree.

So obviously, a firm favourite of the acorn is the squirrel. So then he finds his little nut… but he's just had breakfast! So he's going to go and hide it and save it for lunch later. So all of a sudden this class of 30 children has now turned into a class of 30 squirrels. And then we give them a little acorn (it’s actually a chickpea, so we don't have any health and safety issues!) And then we get the children to go and hide it.

And then they can't go and tell any other squirrels, because squirrels are quite naughty and cheeky and they will go and nick other squirrels’ acorns. And definitely don't tell the older squirrels because they're really bad at letting the intel out!

They go and hide it, and then we go off and finish off the rest of our activities. And then I always say to them, I say, “Don't forget where you've hidden it, et cetera. Don't tell anyone!” We come back, and probably about 50% of the group of 30 squirrels…can't find their nuts!

So I say to them, “What do you think has happened to it?” And they're like, “Oh, another squirrel’s eaten it!” [“I think it was eaten by a wolf”, I had once!] Or, “It was eaten by the Gruffalo!”

But then what you do is you put forward the question, “But what if it wasn't eaten by an animal? What if it's still there in the ground? What do you think will happen to it?” And then you lead onto the idea of how it will germinate and how it will go from being that little acorn that you went to go and hide to turning into a big oak tree and all the things that are involved in that. So soil, water, warmth…

Can you tell that Lottie teaches a lot of preschoolers! I really enjoy teaching the slightly older ones. So for me, it was probably den building.

When you get a group of children together, get them into small groups and you say, “Right, you've got to build a den out of naturally found material. It's got to be water proof. It's got to be structurally safe and it's got to get your whole team in it.”

And they - Oh my goodness! - it's just like a free for all in the first 10 minutes! Then they work out how to make it all come together. They build their shelters … and then you throw water on them!

[That's my favourite part of den building! Actually that's my second favourite activity - I'm surprised I didn’t share that – is throwing water on the children]
Especially when you have teenagers who - Oh my goodness - they've done their hair, and they DON’T want to get wet. That is just, just the best! Some teachers, though, love that bit!

I like when you do den building and you're ready to chuck the water and the teachers just go, “Yep. Go for it! There are no limits when it comes to the water.” If they listened to the teacher, they would have brought their rain coats, they would have worn sensible shoes, sensible trousers, so they should be covered. So I love it when the teachers just go, “Yep. Go for it!” So that's another activity that's really good.

With that activity though, it’s seeing the kids go from separate people to groups and seeing the group dynamic change as they do the activity.

And they get really competitive. Even the teachers do actually, when they're working alongside them.

And we do make the teachers go in there as well, don't we?

Oh, do you make the teachers go in!? Oh, you're mean, you're mean! … Maybe I'll let the teachers go in ... I'll push them in…