Showing posts with label den building. Show all posts
Showing posts with label den building. Show all posts

Sunday, 20 May 2012

Den Building Party.

How time flies! Rather a cliche I know but on my childrens birthdays it really hits home. It was little ones 6th birthday this week. Obviously he's not that little anymore though! He only wanted three best friends which was a comfortable number for a campfire theme.

Den building first so we dragged branches around the garden and climbed trees to tie on ropes and hang tarps. The children created perfect little hiding places for the nerf gun battle that followed.

We used a flint to light the fire and then cooked local sausages from Primrose Pork on the new grill.  The children wrapped bread dough around sticks to make dampers and then each cooked their own.We used a potato peeler to safely shave the bark off the green sticks.



 I made chocolate fairy cakes with flame coloured icing and then the boys turned them into campfires using flakes for the branches. We finished off dessert with a marshmallow toasting session.


We sandwiched the marshmallows between 2 dark chocolate digestive biscuits for our own version of smores.

At the end of the party the children completed a nature quiz that led to a final clue in the chicken house to locate their party bags. I buried them in a bin bag in the veggie patch and they had to work as a team to dig them out. Quite a lot of flying mud!


Continuing with the smores theme I made each child a tea light coaster with their name on, added a tea light, two cocktail sticks and a bag of mini marshmallows. Take home s'more! I made hessian bags to haul the loot home home.


I think they had a good time. They went home extremely dirty!

Monday, 15 August 2011

Den Building

Den Building - making things boy style!

We've been on a couple of den building expeditions this school holiday. Last week we went to Abberton Reservoir, Colchester for an instructor led day of den building and campfires. The morning was spent scurrying around finding branches and tarp wrestling to make a makeshift sort of shelter. The boys had to stay inside while water was poured on to test for rainproofing qualities. The shelter worked well but the little boy on the other side of the shelter got a soaking as the instructor's bucket of water flew over the top to soak him.




After a packed lunch of chocolate, crisps and not many sandwiches (expedition food!) we helped to build a roaring fire. Whilst the flames died down we used potato peelers to whittle a pointy stick ready for the marshmallows. By the end the fire pit was full of foaming and flaming  pink marshmallows. Being a gang of boys the pink ones accidently fell off to be replaced hopefully by a white one!

Brothers!


After marshmallows we wrapped a dough worm around the stick to make damper bread. The mix of flour and water was made more appealing by the addition of melting chocolate chips. It was actually delicious.

There are lots more activities planned at Abberton for the summer (and other school holidays too). Please follow the link.

To make our den more cosy and homelike these products found on ETSY are on our wishlist for next summer.please click on the picture to go directly to the shop.

Felt Woodland Campfire - Neafus
Campfire tripod & 3 S hooks
My Blacksmith shop
Toasted Marshmallow Fragrance Oil Premium 1 oz 
 Indigo Fragrance

Personal Roasting stick by Firestick.