Since Easter 2021 we have been running holiday clubs as part of the Holiday Activities and Food programme (the one Marcus Rashford encouraged the government to start). Having had 656 individual children and young people register with us in that time, we've built up quite a bank of activities and resources. In this post we provide an overview of our Pokemon holiday clubs, with a Maths theme, and a downloadable book of resources.
What are the clubs?
Funded by HAF, we run these clubs every school holiday at three to five different venues, each catering for up to 64 children. We started with a virtual holiday club as we were still coming out of lockdown, where families received three maths based games and a series of activities, with opportunities to share with each other their experiences in our Facebook groups and through Zoom meetings.
In summer 2021 we were able to run activities in person again, typically using schools and church halls as venues, and we trained 40 members of staff to deliver game-based maths activities. It was headache at the time, but absolutely worth it, as many of those members of staff have returned every holiday to put on fantastic clubs for kids!
Each club has 5 elements per day: crafts, maths activities, Pokemon TCG, other maths based games (e.g. Sushi Go, Kingdomino, Zuuli), and a healthy meal (often children would take part in helping to prepare that food, as part of the HAF objectives are to promote food education and healthy choices).
This book has our background, our pedagogy, as well as step by step instructions for four days worth of activities, spanning four hours per day.
Who can use this material?
We’re happy for any families, schools, and home-schoolers to use this material, along with any charities and community organisations. Any companies (including CICs) please contact us first, and we ask that you don’t use the material where Gamers@Hart is already operating holiday clubs.
Can you offer any more help?
Yes! If you have a quick question or are after some advice, feel free to reach out to us. We’ll be delivering a seminar at this year’s (2023) UK Games Expo, so find us on Friday afternoon.
If you want more sustained training or help with application forms for funding we can also offer help, but there may be opportunities to find funding for that training that we can help you with.
Alongside this book there are some photocopiable sheets and resources that we’re currently combining into an appendix that we’ll add here shortly. The PDF has also been compressed for the web, for a high-res version please contact us.