Facilitate fun
"I love to plunge into a chuckle of children (what is the collective noun for a group of kids?) and share my enthusiasm for the outdoors."
Kids aren’t daft, so why do we reduce ourselves to measuring sunflowers and cuddly mascot spotting when trying to engage them with historic sites?
I believe in treating kids with respect but also with an eye to the importance of play in learning, so love to mix Serious Historic Information with a bit of Cheeky Fun.
I am able to plan sessions for you to deliver independently, but I am equally happy working directly with the children myself.
Here are some of the fun sessions I have created:
Historic Royal Palaces
For Historic Royal Palaces I devised outdoor activities for delivery at Kensington Palace to give children a gardening experience and teach them about making 18th century gardens.
Walmer Kids in Museums
For English Heritage at Walmer Castle I designed and delivered a Kids in Museums Takeover Day at which EH were able to share the history and landscape of Walmer with local schoolchildren whilst also scoping the young people’s views on possible play provision.
Nottinghamshire Gardens Trust
For Nottinghamshire Gardens Trust I devised a simple and affordable gardening activity to enable them to meet families whilst sharing the work of their small charity.
HahaHopscotch
I run children’s play sessions through HahaHopscotch, a small business with a big heart, which loves searching out the best of play from the past and bringing it to life for the 21st century. It’s freckly, dishevelled and forgivably nostalgic … let’s play!
HahaHopscotch offers 3 sessions:
Traditional Garden Games, which can be bundled as:
- Assortment of Traditional
- Garden Games
- Sports Day Favourites
- Urban Urchins
- Back to the 18th Century
- Back to the 19th Century
- Medieval Mayhem
Giggly & Greenfingered Gardening:
Our gardening sessions always help the children think about the site they are in. Pots decorated with castles, scarecrows based on historic personalities, and take-home gardens based on famous ones … we love them. Our gorgeous and fun gardening sessions always end with happy children taking something lovely and horticultural home with them.
Garden Galavant:
The Garden Galavant is a very special games session, designed to introduce children to the joys of garden history. This unique spectacle has to be seen to be believed, but suffice to say it involves a race to gather flowers from a medieval mede, topiary hats, a hoard of rowdy cattle and sheep harrassing gentry over a haha, and lots of false moustaches. And the best bit is that I get to talk to lots of chest-high garden visitors about historic gardens.
HahaHopscotch sessions are perfect for garden open days, weddings, parties, school visits, holiday events and fetes.
HahaHopscotch has enjoyed playing at historic gardens including Strawberry Hill, Burgess Park, Fenton House, Alexandra Palace Park and Cleveland Square in London; Claremont Landscape Gardens in Surrey; Sudbury Children’s Country House in Derbyshire; Ardkinglas in Argyll; and Bohemia Walled Gardens, and Borde Hill, Sussex.
Hours of simple, inspiring fun … with no impact on the historic setting!
