campers!

JULY 2009 16 www.scholastic.co.uk/junioredplus JULY 2009 17

Holidays

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Celebrate the great British holiday camp with a collection ofcross-curricular activities – a spectacular finale to your summer term

With the credit crunch ensuring that many families will choose to holiday in the UK this

year, perhaps it is time to celebrate the great British holiday. And, what better way to do this than by running

your own Butlins®-style holiday camp at your school? Whether you choose to run this project over a week or just a day, involving one class or the whole school, the eclectic mix of activities and competitions for which holiday camps are known will allow lots of

Rosie HuckleYear 4 teacher at St Andrew’s CE Primary School, Leasingham

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scope for cross-curricular links. Moreover, it could be arranged to tie in with existing events in your school’s calendar such as sports day or the summer fête. Either way, it’s certain to energise children during those last weeks of term!

History of the holiday campBilly Butlin is generally regarded as the man who created the holiday camp as we know it, opening his first site in Skegness in 1936. What set Butlins® apart from its competitors was the sheer size of the camps and the range of family entertainment on offer for incredible value for money. In drab post-war Britain, the camps promised and delivered a world far removed from anything most people had experienced before. The heyday for the holiday camp was the 1950s and 60s. However, by the 70s people had started taking advantage of new, cheap package holidays abroad. Sadly, by the 1980s, many camps had closed as they were perceived to represent a lack of imagination and low social standing. Instead, holiday makers wanted to be seen to be taking more aspirational holidays. However, in the 1990s, substantial investment in the remaining camps, and new entrants to the market (such as Center Parcs®), boosted the quality of holiday camps. Camps started to become popular again, especially with young families.

Personal experiences (history)A holiday camp unit of work links particularly well with the Year 6 QCA history Unit 13 – How has life in Britain changed since 1948?. Since many children have experiences of going on holiday, this is one area of history in which they are likely to get a good grasp on how values and attitudes have changed over time. Holiday photographs of parents or grandparents when they were young will provide lots of opportunities for discussion about similarities and differences, and such resources are probably quite accessible. Parents or grandparents who have experiences of staying at a holiday camp, could also be invited into school to talk to the children and answer questions. Further information, including images, can be found at: www.butlinsmemories.com andwww.postcardnostalgia.co.uk/holiday_camps.htm

Organising your event(cross curricular)Running a holiday camp in school would be a fantastic post-SATs project for Year 6 children. They could take responsibility for much of the planning and organisation, as well as making bunting, decorations and posters, designing badges for the other children and creating their own holiday camp brochure. At the very least, they could serve as ‘Redcoats’ (red T-shirts could be designed and printed for a relatively low cost), organising other children through a carousel of different activities during the day or week, and leading the ‘entertainments’ towards the end

of the event. Indeed, the Year 6 end-of-year production could become part of a wider ‘variety performance’ after school. Alternatively, you might like to give different year groups or small groups of children responsibility for planning and leading a different aspect of the event. It is also worth considering involving your PTA. They could take part in the planning stages with the children, and may well have links with outside agencies or companies who could get involved or provide sponsorship. They may also be able to provide funds for a bouncy castle, or could run a family barbecue to raise more money for the school.

JULY 2009 18 www.scholastic.co.uk/junioredplus JULY 2009 19

Holidays

www.scholastic.co.uk/junioredplus

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Feeding the happy campers (D&T/health and wellbeing)Up until the late 1960s, Butlins® holiday camps provided full board for all of their guests, with up to 10,000 visitors receiving three meals a day! A Butlins® shopping list for a typical year in the early 1960s can be viewed at www.butlinsmemories.com/other/faq/index.htm It details the mammoth amount of food needed. Luckily, catering for your school holiday camp doesn’t have to be on such a scale! Your holiday camp could start the day with a special breakfast club. Children could sign up and pay in advance, and your ‘Redcoats’ (teachers or older children) could act as waiters and waitresses. Parents could help make the breakfasts, but it could equally be kept simple with cereals, yoghurt and fruit. Planning the menu would provide an opportunity to teach children about a healthy diet. This could

be followed up with a ‘healthy tuck shop’ at breaktimes offering holiday-themed choices such as smoothies, juices and fruit kebabs. You could also host a lunchtime

Get set, go! (PE/dance/health and wellbeing)Camps provided lots of different activities to keep holiday makers active and occupied, and though schools don’t usually stretch to outdoor pools, boating lakes and dodgem cars, there are still lots of things that you can offer. First thing in the morning, the children could plan ‘wake and shake’ style exercises for the class to do to music of their choice. Many schools already offer similar ten-minute energisers for morning and afternoon, but this would be a fun opportunity for children to create their own. For more ideas, a video, ‘KS2 PE The Morning: Waking Up’, is downloadable from Teachers TV (www.teachers.tv), as well as brilliant dance activities with linked music from Out of the Ark Music available from www.scholastic.co.uk/junioredplus (search for ‘cold and frosty’). The holiday camp event could also be tied in with your actual school sports day, or you might prefer to offer an alternative ‘potted sports’ afternoon with teams competing in more unusual races. For example, you could have:• relay or obstacle courses • orienteering (opportunities to develop

team-building skills)• egg and spoon or three-legged races• a penalty shoot out• your own version of a ‘Donkey Derby’ with pairs of children racing using hoops. After lunch, it would be fun to organise some outdoor games such as rounders or perhaps a five-a-side football tournament. Consider contacting your local sports clubs or secondary schools to see if they can provide any outreach support. Some GCSE and A-level sports courses require young people to

demonstrate community sports leadership, and you may be able to arrange something through your local School Sport Coordinator (SSCo). Similarly, you could ask if any parents or carers could offer sport activities for children, such as aerobics, martial arts or ballroom dancing. If you are running your event over several days, or if the weather is bad, you may like to set up an indoor games room. Children could take part in board games, badminton, indoor bowls or ping pong.

Creative crafts (D&T/art)There are many different craft activities that could be done with the children – perhaps in order to sell as holiday camp souvenirs and raise school funds. This would also make links with the following QCA D&T units: Unit 5C – Moving toys and Unit 4A – Money containers. Or, it might be interesting to focus on ideas of recycling and junk modelling for which equipment is readily and cheaply available. For example:

Pots of pizzazz: Invite the children to make their own pen pots. Attach masking tape to the top of washed-out tin cans to secure any rough edges. Using double-sided sticky tape, position three vertical strips around the outside of the can. Starting at the bottom, wind wool or coloured string around the can, ensuring that no metal is showing and the wool/string is stuck down firmly. Different coloured stripes can be used

until the whole can is covered. These can be further decorated with felt shapes or sequins. Large yoghurt pots or plastic tubs could be used in the same way to create customised plant pots.

Summer nightlights: Get the children to paint old jars with glass paints and put a tealight inside for an attractive garden decoration. A handle can be made from a piece of twisted wire around the rim, followed by another piece of wire attached either side of the jar opening.

It’s behind you!: Encourage the children to make puppets for their own puppet show. A theatre can easily be made from painted cardboard boxes. Search for ‘puppet theatre’ at www.scholastic.co.uk/junioredplus for a theatre-themed creative topic that includes details on how to build your own fantastic puppet theatre and string puppets!

A jolly extravaganza! (cross curricular)The following activities provide even more cross-curricular ideas for a holiday camp-themed unit of work.

Fingers on buzzers: Run a general-knowledge quiz with sections on music, sport, history, geography, books and film/TV. Teachers or older children could each take responsibility for writing the questions for a round, and buzzers could be made using the QCA science Unit 2F – Using electricity. (Questions could focus on topics or themes being taught.)

At the movies: Hold a cinema screening in class using the interactive whiteboard. You could even make some popcorn and milkshakes to add to the atmosphere.

Alternatively, set up a karaoke or singing competition.

Treasure trail: A treasure hunt would provide another opportunity for the children to work in mixed-age groups. Cryptic clues (to boost spelling or mental maths) and physical challenges could be set up with chocolate coins as prizes.

Beauty pageant: Explain that beauty pageants were a popular form of entertainment in early holiday camps. Although competitions such as ‘Most Glamorous Granny’ and ‘Miss Lovely Legs’ are probably best avoided, you could consider running a fancy dress competition.

Wish you were here: A good literacy link for the holiday camp theme would be

persuasive writing, designing an advert for example. This could be extended using ICT to record a radio advert for the camp that you could post on your school website. The children could also practise their letter writing, penning a letter or postcard ‘home’, telling family members about their holiday camp experiences.

Audience participation: Have fun teaching children some call-and-response songs that could be performed to the school in an assembly. A free song bank is freely available when you register at www.singup.org

You’ve got talent!: In true Redcoat style, host an all-singing, all-dancing cabaret inspired variety show with magic tricks, juggling, dance performances, joke telling or dramatic sketches. If you are running the event across the school, each class could vote for the best act, with only the best acts performing for parents, carers and other visitors. Teachers could also be involved in performing, perhaps with a panel of children as reality TV-style judges. While a holiday camp event will certainly take a lot of planning and organisation (and you may well need a holiday afterwards!) it will certainly enable you to make lots of positive learning links and finish the year on a high.

picnic outside (weather permitting). Children could help to prepare the food, ensuring a balance between drinks, snacks and savoury items.

Online extra!Visit www.scholastic.co.uk/junioredplus to read a case

study about one school’s exciting IPC Unit ‘The Holiday Show’.