Hello, I’m Katie and I’m the camp manager at blue{shift}. Amongst other things, I have the great job of making sure all the kids who come to our camps have the best time possible. Whilst this is mostly ensuring that everything runs smoothly - it also means I get to plan extra games and activities for the students.  And our upcoming October holiday camps are no exception! Every year we try to bring a bit of horror into what we do over October and, as a result, Halloween is always great fun. But this year, we’re really going beyond the grave with a spooky activity every day of camp! Intended mainly for our younger students, older children are encouraged to join in the fun - otherwise, we will have other age-appropriate playtime activities for our older students.

On Monday of the camp we’ll be playing some classic Halloween games like ‘pin the nose on the witch’ and creating mummies out of our classmates using only toilet roll, giving the kids a chance to get to know each other and break the ice. 

Then, on Tuesday we’ll be having a spider hunt - where our campers will be searching for some hidden creepy crawlies in the playground.They’ll have to keep their eyes peeled and search high and low... Our top searchers from each class will get a prize to take home with them. 

Mid-week we will be getting arty with some face paints, as campers can choose how to have their face painted by some of our most creative teachers. Will it be a fairy princess or a vampiric queen? A monster or a robot? And if they don’t fancy turning into a spooky character then they can always get a small temporary tattoo instead. 

Then, on Thursday we’ll be playing Halloween Bingo - each child will have their own bingo card with zombies, pumpkins and other classic Halloween characters, and will have to listen out carefully to have a chance of completing their row. If they do, however, they’ll be crowned winners of our bingo bonanza and win another cool prize!

Finally, to finish the week each child and all camp teachers and staff will be dressing up in the scariest, most chilling costumes possible! The child (as voted for by the teachers) and the adult (voted for by the children) with the best costume will - you guessed it - win a prize. Previously we’ve had dinosaurs, a burger, and Cleopatra all make appearances. Who will it be this year? 

As well as all these fun playtime games, we’ll also have Halloween-themed coding activities to do in class. Last year, our Robotics Bootcamp students made pumpkins using one of our 3D printers, and our JavaScript class made their own spiders - coding them so that their legs and mouths moved and so that they could sense when you got close - how creepy!