Junior Blog: 5th October 2020

Welcome to the Katie Jayne Tutors Junior Blog, Issue Number 17.

How chilly!!! And such a turn in the colour of the leaves….. it is really turning wintery. We have Halloween and Guy Fawkes night just around the corner and when the clocks go back on the 25th October it really will feel like winter is truly upon us. We love the change in the seasons and enjoy the beautiful variety of colours produced by all of the different trees. I love finding a big pile of leaves that you can wade through – our dog leaps through any pile of leaves he comes across, jumping and thoroughly enjoying stomping down as they rustle.

We have some wonderful ideas for Halloween in our ‘Get Spooky’ article and a few of our favourite winter recipes. Outdoor Delights should keep you entertained with lots of great ideas on how to keep busy over the holiday.

Enjoy the month of October and don’t forget, only a few weeks and it is half term…..

See you next time!

Sam

Get Spooky!

Absolutely one of my favourite events of the year…dressing up, carving pumpkins, playing games, collecting sweets, playing tricks, scaring your friends and walking around your local neighbourhood to see what fun and creative ways people have chosen to celebrate Allhallows.

Historical festivals were held around the end of October in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Many years ago people believed that at this time of year, the spirits of dead people could come ‘alive’ and walk among the living. We think that this is why we all dress up in Halloween costumes today. We all know that our favourite games can be played on the 31st of October and this year that day falls on a Saturday so you can probably stay up a little later than normal and it is half term, even better.

Here are some ideas on how to make Halloween fun even during Covid…

Make your face mask into a Halloween face mask. How about a monster mouth, or a scary smile? Our favourite was the pussy cat whisker mask.

Everyone can enjoy the Mummy Sack Race. Usually we use toilet rolls for this game, but this year we thought that perhaps we should save on the toilet rolls and use really really old pillow cases. Spread your Mummies two meters apart, each Mummy gets into a sack and the first Mummy to reach the finish line wins….. the benefit of this game is that it keeps you warm too.

Carve out a few pumpkins with really big mouths. Place the pumpkins at a reasonable height and stand a sensible distance away. Use bean bags to try and aim, throwing your bean bag into the mouth of the pumpkin. You will score points for every bean bag that enters the pumpkin – we call this game Swallow the Bean Bag.

Drop the Pumpkin is great fun. Take four orange plastic balls (like the balls you find in the ball pit) draw some eyes and a mouth on them to make them look like a pumpkin, save all of your used cardboard toilet roll centres and let the race begin. Each player holds two cardboard toilet roll centres (one in each hand) then you place the orange pumpkin ball on top of the toilet roll centre and whilst trying to balance the pumpkin move as quickly as you can around a set course or set distance…. whoever manages to do this in the quickest time without dropping a ball wins.

Food ‘O’ Ween

How about a frozen banana? Take a banana, peel it, place a lolly stick in its base, melt some chocolate, cover in your favourite ingredients, like sprinkles, nuts or fruit and then freeze them ready for Halloween.

Chocolate covered pretzels are yummy. Melt some chocolate, coat your pretzels in the chocolate, set them aside to dry – don’t forget to add a set of edible eye balls just to make them come to life.

Whhoooohumous! Take your houmous, place it into a carved-out pumpkin (small) cut up some red and yellow peppers and some cucumber, stick the peppers and cucumber strips into the houmous and place this on your table as a centerpiece.

Our Halloween story!

Every year for Halloween, the small crescent where we lived would be full of all of the local families from the neighbourhood. Everyone went out and about on their Halloween walks. Our house was a favourite stop off for young and old out on their trick or treat hunt. And I shall tell you why…..?

It was the first year in our new house and we decided that we would like to do something special for our neighbourhood by setting up a projector to shine a forty-foot high picture of a scary Halloween house onto the outside of our own house. We happily set up the projector when it started to get dark and then at 6.30pm we switched it on. The scary Halloween house shone brightly. We thought it looked fab and that it might be fun for the local families whilst out on their trick or treat.

After a few minutes, some local families started to knock at the door and told us how brilliant the projection was. We had a flurry of knocks with small children waiting eagerly at the door to choose their sweet treats from the large tub of chocolates that we had bought from the local shop. As we were waving off a local family of ghosts and ghouls we noticed a parade of cars starting to drive down our small crescent. Word had spread and families were driving past our house to see the ghostly home. We ran out of sweets and had to run along to the local sweet shop to buy more. We were exhausted opening the door and by 9.00pm decided we should switch off the projection.

The following year we thought we should try and create a similar ghostly feel, so we chose a new picture to project onto the outside of our house, but this time we made some gravestones out of cement, painted them and added wording to them. These gravestones were placed along the driveway so that our trick or treaters had to walk through the graveyard to get to our front door. That night was a huge success. I was a lot more organised that year – I had purchased four large boxes of sweets from the shop and so hoped that I would not run out.

One day when I was doing my weekly food shop it suddenly occurred to me how much of the community our house had become when a lady came to me and said, “Are you the lady that lives at No: 8 The Green?” “Yes” I replied…she said, “We love your house and visit every year at Halloween, what will you have up this year?”

The pressure was on… we had to come up with a better idea than last year! What would we do?

Well, we chose another picture to project on to the wall. We made the graveyard on the driveway and then we constructed a big ghost the size of a small adult and attached him to a rope that started from our top window and ran outside down our driveway, just like a zipline. We had a member of the family up at the top window and every time someone started to walk up the drive the ghost would be released to fly down the zip line…. as it went it screeched out….. this was the best Halloween ever!

Katie Jayne’s Interesting Facts

Playing outside is so good for you. Even just half an hour outdoors has many health benefits and it is always really good fun. See if you can round up a pile of leaves and create some games that you and your family can play together.

Thought For The Week

Try collecting a lovely range of coloured leaves and stick them into a picture on a nice big sheet of paper and use this as a decoration in your home for Halloween. Please send us some photographs of your work, we will have a gallery of wintery pics at the end of the year.

Cook’s Corner

Spooktacular Mocktail

Ingredients

2l cherry juicepeel from 3 oranges,1 thumb-sized red chilli, pierced a few times but left whole3 cinnamon sticks

10 cloves

6 slices ginger

Dracula’s fangs sweets (available from sweet shops), to serve, optional

Method

Tip the cherry juice, orange peel, chilli, cinnamon sticks, cloves and ginger into a large saucepan. Simmer for 5 mins, then turn off the heat. Leave to cool, then chill for at least 4 hrs, or up to 2 days – the longer you leave it the more intense the flavours. If you don’t like chilli remove after one hour of soaking.

When you’re ready to serve, pour the juice into a jug. Serve in glass bottles or glasses and pop a straw in each. Dangle a fangs sweet from each glass.

Outdoor Delights

Halloween at London Designer Outlet, Wembley Park
21 October-3 November 2019

The Original Tour’s Spooktacular Kids Tour, central London
24 October-1 November

Grim Keepers at ZSL London Zoo, Regent’s Park
19-27 October

Hyde Park’s Hair Raising Discovery Days
23 & 24 October

Spooky Storytime on the London Eye, Waterloo
23-26 & 31 October

Lil’ Monsters Bash at Hard Rock Cafe, Mayfair
26 October

Osterley Park and House Halloween Pumpkin Festival
19-26 October

Education

Reading for 7 year olds

Tidy Up Winnie by Laura Owen & Korky Paul – Before you read the book take a look at the cover, does it give you any ideas as to what the story might be about?

Reading for 9 year olds

Oh Otto – by Michaela Morgan. Once you have read the book, think about the words that Otto gets mixed up with, some sound the same but have different meanings.

Reading for 11 year olds

The Rise of the Empty People – by Dynamo and Julia Golding. As you read this book try using expression in your voice to bring the words to life.

English

What are fronted adverbals?

Watch this short film to help explain.