a post in February 2019 piqued my interest. It was the above image of the microbial handprint of Tasha Sturm's own 8-year-old child after he had been playing outside... ...outdoor and messy play is important not just for children's development, but health as well.
Outdoor
Night Wide Games
With any wide game always bear in mind rules for keeping safe There’s something about doing games and activities at night in the dark that makes it just that all the more exciting for children and youth. However if you are organising or taking part in any outdoor night...
Search and Rescue (Wide Game)
With any wide game always bear in mind rules for keeping safe Equipment A number of differently coloured straws (one colour for each team) + some ‘bonus’ straws coloured black and/or some that have been covered in luminous paint. Open playing field, or similar area with short grass. Optional:...
Hunt the Leader (Wide Game)
With any wide game always bear in mind rules for keeping safe Use a limited area of fields and/or woodland. Leaders can move freely around if they wish (advisable). Players have to collect signatures from each leader, but the objective is to collect as many signatures as possible in...
Elves, Wizards and Giants (Wide Game)
With any wide game always bear in mind rules for keeping safe Equipment: Life-bands or life tokens A number of tokens marked either Elf, Wizard or Giant Play: Split the group into two teams. Either create a base for each team of allow each team to find and make...
Raiders (Wide Game)
With any wide game always bear in mind rules for keeping safe Equipment: Life bands or other token (e.g. potato see Fools Gold) Play: Establish 3 bases some distance from each other and divide into 2 relatively equal teams the “Raiders” and the “Runners” (number of players in each...
“Big Foot” (Wide Game)
With any wide game always bear in mind rules for keeping safe (c) Kit Logan, 2001 – licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike2.5 License. A more complex wide game for teens and older children. Big Foot is based on the idea and legend of the “Sasquatch” and an original...
Witch in the Woods (Wide Game)
With any wide game always bear in mind rules for keeping safe Simple game that requires a playing area with a number of places to hide making it ideal for playing as a wide game… particularly at night. Establish a base, one person is chosen to be the tagger...
Coastguards and Smugglers (Wide Game)
With any wide game always bear in mind rules for keeping safe This is one of the simplest wide games and the basis for many of the more complex wide games. It is effectively an embellished version of `Tag’ Players are divided into two teams, a small team of...
Wide Games and Night Wide Games
If there was ever a favourite game of mine when I was a youth (and possibly still the case :-), it was the Wide Games. ‘Wide Games’ include any game requiring or making use of any large area of land. Provided you stick to a few simple rules they...