My Sunday Photo || {The Ordinary Moments}

My Sunday Photo || {The Ordinary Moments}

We went on a BIG ghost hunt!

I hope you are enjoying your half term break and had fun this Halloween! 

During this break I did struggle to have imagination and fill all this week with activities to do with with the kids.  Luckily, around Southampton  ' Go Southampton' is offering a city 'Ghost trail' for families to enjoy around the Old city centre. So, that was one morning sorted with more ghost hunting fun! You can enjoy this activity until the 3rd of November (find more here).

As Ghost hunting, or treasure hunting is indeed something that my kids really enjoy to do, I could not miss a ghost hunt  around Southampton. We packed a quick snack lunch bag and off we went, ghost hunting! Map on hands.... and lets explore the old city centre and find all the lost ghosts...

This Ghost hunting involved searching ghosts in several specific spots, 11 altogether and a mysterious last one. There are many venues collaborating with the trail, as the points where the ghost are hiding.   These are local pubs as the 'Duke of Wellington' and main touristic attractions in the city, as 'Tudor House'. The Tudor House was also the origin from where all the ghosts escaped...

We could easily find many families following this ghost trail.  At any given ghosts point children were searching and locating the  various 'lost ghost'.  These 'lost ghosts' are historical figures, which will not only teach the children interesting facts and also feature a letter which will be key to find a hidden clue that will show you  your final 'ghost point'. 

For the grown ups the trail is may not be as exciting as far as a ghost hunt goes, but it still can provide you with interesting sightseeing while rediscovering the local attractions.

The ghost trail took us all the morning to do and was enjoyable. After my children found the ghosts, all the little pieces of information about fun historical facts  were oddly  remembered! Also, if you love the city and know other facts you can also pitch in and teach them a little more!

At the end of the ghost trail you can also claim a prize. You just need to fill up and return the map in the last spot of the trail, which will be known once you are done collecting all the clues. 

All the search and ghost finding gave the kids a true sense of fulfilment  as they got a prize at the end! These were masks that they had fun scrapping and discovering different colours.

Now, this school break is almost over. Only one more weekend and school will resume. I know that once it starts I will miss the  kids, but not sure I will miss the stress of...what are we doing today???

We had a mini Ghost Hunt!

Half term break is here and that means that parents, me included are on the lookout for activities to do with little ones! Today I created a mini ghost hunt, which I did with my little ones! I hope I inspire you to do your  hunt at home. In the past I did an egg hunt with the kids, and since Halloween is here, I decided to change the theme for a more 'Halloweeny' one, and here is our very own Ghost hunt!

I used materials that I already had in my craft cabinet, so I haven't spent  any money at all in this project.

If you are thinking about making a similar hunt, here are the materials I used in the little felt ghosts:

Felt (colours I used, blue, light and dark grey, cream)

Embroidery thread

Embroidery Needle

...and for the little signalling ghosts:

Card (different colours, for ghosts and arrows)

Duck-tape

Scissors

Black pen

colouring pencils

Wooden skewer

I first started to make my little felt ghosts with different colours:

These took some time to make, but if you google alternatives some paper suggestions come up. I decided to make them in felt  because I hosted my ghost hunt outdoors, so felt seemed more appropriate given the  more humid and cold weather. I also think that with young children having felt ghosts would mean then these would be reusable in the future, either as soft toys (and they were already playing with each one that I finished), or simply as decorations.  If you are having an indoors ghost hunt making paper ghost are much quicker and easy to make. I made 9 felt ghosts altogether and this was the most laboured task of this process. I planed to make more (12 little felt ghosts) but as it was taking me so long to make this, I cut the number short. However, and given how fast the kids found them - it took this hunt around 10 minutes, I would advise for a larger number of ghosts (the initial 12). This is a balance between having a hunt to take some time, but not so much to bore the kids. Also, making the ghosts really difficult to find would not work, the kids would be discouraged, and not forgetting that this was for children of different ages, my little one is only 2! However, if I am considering that the kids were engaged in this whole process, it actually took us the whole morning doing this...

Then I made the signalling ghosts. These were very easy to make and my little ones helped me with the cutting and with the colouring.

These designs where inspired from the internet, and were really simple to make. 

After cutting and colouring, it was time to attach to a skewer using duck-tape. Kids also helped me with these steps.

And here it is, the final look of the signalling ghosts, the only step missing are the little arrows that I also glued over the ghosts:

All ready to stick in the garden (oops, minus the arrows)!

My oldest stick the ghosts in the garden. He was really excited with all, and helping me make these. They were engaged in this little craft project, and I let them help as much as they could. The only thing that I actually did on my own was hiding the ghosts in the garden! Otherwise they would not be having a ghost hunt....

We also made a ghost counting card, were the kids would mark once they found the different ghosts in the garden.

Once the little guys found the different ghosts and capture them, they would tick their card!

The last one to find was the this little yellow ghost...!

Both kids really enjoyed the ghost hunt. They were asking to repeat the ghost hunt tomorrow again! 

Happy hunting!