The year 4’s went on a residential to Cholderton Rare Breeds Farm, near Salisbury from the 11th June until the 13th June. A great time was had by all, however we did return to school rather exhausted (children, Mrs Langton and Mrs Pang)!!
While we were there the children had chance to visit the animals on the site on numerous occasions. The animals included young animals and some chicks that were born whilst we were there. There were goats, sheep, horses and ponies, chickens and many more. There was a very large pig called Hamlet who sat and waited patiently for his ‘apple treats’, a small dog pig called Charlotte who rolled over to have her tummy tickled regularly and on the last a day a pig race took place!
There were activities laid on over our stay. The children were split into two groups during the day but they all covered the same activities but in a different order. These groups had a specific activity leader allocated to them and the leaders taught the children many songs and jingles which were chanted whilst walking around the sight.
Day time activities were:
Fencing where the children dressed up in the correct attire and were taught how to challenge someone else to a dual, this meant you needed to slap your opponent around their masked face (the children thought this great fun!), as well as how to use a foil correctly.
Initiative exercises where they had problem solving challenges to carry out in the woods. They needed to cooperate and listen to each others ideas and work as a team.
Archery, all the children were taught how to use this piece of equipment safely and many scored bullseyes or near bullseyes.
Team challenges here the children had to work as a team and if all didn’t participate then the challenges could not be successfully completed. They all worked well at this and Mrs Langton and Mrs Pang were proud of how well they cooperated with each other.
Orienteering using a map of the site they needed to find their way to various points to collect and record pictures.
A Sensory Trail was set up in the woods. The children were blind folded for this and after carrying out a few activities to familiarise them with the blind folds they held on to a rope and the shoulder of the person in front and were led into the woods guided by the verbal comments of the person in front. One group did this on the first day and stayed dry but the other group did this on the second day and naughty monkeys were in the woods and the children got wet and muddy!
The children shared meal times and chill out times with Beckington who also went on the residential. This gave them chance to meet children that they will be moving on to Selwood with. There were two evening activities which we carried out together with Beckington. One was a Nocturnal Safari where we explored the woods, animals and trees at twilight. The other was Egg Protector where each of the three teams bid for boxes and materials to protect their egg and once it was enclosed inside the box teams had to carry out challenges set by the activity leaders. These including dribbling the box, football style, around cones, playing up and over with the boxes and at the end of the activities the eggs were removed. The eggs were all intact much to the surprise of all and ended with an eggsecution where the team leaders broke the eggs over the head of a selected activity leader!
Mrs Wheeler visited and joined in with the activities on the second day and Mrs B came out in the evening on the second day to visit.
All were sad to leave such a fun packed few days but were also glad to be going home to their families.
