August 2006

This month, as the schools are all closed down for the summer, and Keighley grinds to a halt, I have mainly been involved in summer schemes, in particular KHLN summer fun and summer activities at Whinfield Community Centre (an event involving a lot of Apprentice involvement).
As I promised in last month's BLOGs, here is the second, and last instalment, of KHLN 'Summer Fun 2006' Summer Scheme.

Second week
We went ice skating, visited Buckden House, went to Wycoller Country Park and Cliffe Castle (Keighley) and we had a small party, to celebrate the end of the scheme.

Ice skating - we went ice skating in Bradford and it was the first time in 15 years that I had been myself!!! But I soon picked it up again, as did all the children, so by the end of the day nearly all of them could skate. We had a fantastic time and everyone enjoyed it
Buckden House - there was a range of activities such as archery, high rope climbing and caving. As yesterday, we all had a great time. Archery was good - first you learnt how to hold and shoot your arrows, then as you became better at shooting and aiming the arrow, you got to play games such as archery darts. High ropes were a little scary for some of them, as they had to abseil down the equivalent of a 2-storey building and the high ropes seemed even scarier. But as they had more time on the high ropes, the more their confidence grew. It was fantastic to see. The instructor was great with them- talking them round when they were anxious and boosting their confidence. I wasn't with the group that was caving but when they retuned they were in high spirits, telling us all about it, and as 2 of my own children went caving I'm still hearing about it now.
Wycoller Country Park - we went pond dipping and orienteering. I think most of the children enjoyed the pond dipping, but when we went orienteering the heavens opened and we got wet through but everyone was still very excitable.
Cliffe Castle - there was a treasure hunt, where they had to search around the museum to try and find golden coins, using clues. We also went upstairs to the laboratory, where we saw the taxidermist, who explained how you stuff various animals, and what materials he uses. The children found this to be interesting but there was a lot of "Oohh!! that's gross!!"

At the end of the day, we came back to the Keighley Healthy Living Network Building to have a small party. At the end of this, some were sad to be leaving, but a very good time was had by all.