I bought a play parachute (balloon) from Maude’s sports in the UK last month. It was a bargain at £35, and simply put, such a good buy. I remember using one with a 5-12 year old play-group, during my time as a youth worker at Powis Community Centre in Aberdeen. Luckily, it arrived just in time for our annual school BBQ in Hamadera Park. It had been quite a few years since I had last used a parachute, so I wasn’t quite sure how to incorporate English into the games at first. Other than using the parachute colours themselves, I was quite stuck. Then, a sudden rush of inspiration led me to Daiso ¥100 store, where I bought some plastic balls, fluffy toy fruit & vegetables and was now ready to Rock n’ Roll. On the 27th of Sept we all met in the park at 10:50am, as planned. I had the BBQ gear all set up ready for lunch, with the hamburgers, hot dogs and yaki-soba in the cool box ready to go. I quickly gathered the kids and sat them down on the blue ground sheets and played a few warm-up games, using simple questions like “what’s your name?” and “ do you like .....?”. I use a few toy cell-phones that have beeps & bells do do this. Works really well with the sound effects!
Later, I pulled out the parachute and the kids went wild, running around chasing the coloured plastic balls. Luckily, no one got injured or upset, and the day carried on smoothly for all in attendance. Big thanks to all the parents for lending a hand with the parachute games. Takes quite a lot of effort to control the contraption, getting everyone to lift & drop the parachute in unison, on command. The Halloween party is coming up and it’s sure to come in handy during the party.

check out our events page for details on Halloween!