CHILD CARE ACTIVITIES

In some areas schools are remaining open for child care for those in critical jobs.

If you’re looking for something for the children affected to do that is not too educational, but still has some elements of educational problem solving, and easily adaptable and theme-able to take their minds off the current crisis then we’d suggest exploring our children’s mystery packs.

These are designed for 7-10 year olds, but many have been used in a child care settings and after school clubs before.  They are designed to run over 2 hours with a party tea – but in child care settings, with the extra ideas we always include, we have been told they easily last a day!

Some games are better suited to school environments than others.  So do get in touch if you need help picking the right one for your setting.   As with all our kids mysteries – if it doesn’t suit – just contact us for a refund.  Kids are really hard to buy for.

If your child is having a birthday in the next few weeks and feeling a little glum about the lack of friends – many of these parties can be adapted to work with just 1 or 2 as with a group – so feel free to contact us for help finding the right game to give your child something a bit different to do on their birthday this year.

Hosting Virtual Parties

There are a variety of on-line chat options available to you that are often free to use for small groups.

Let’s face it – we’re probably largely behind the times.  Teenagers have been chatting on group chats via the x-box for years.  So it’s time we all “got with it” and found a way we could do the same.

You can play very simple games by each taking a turn to talk on Facebook and answering questions posed in group chats.  You can also have groups on Google Hangouts.  Don’t quiz us as we’re still very new to the on-line group meeting thing too!  But if you ask a teenager – I’m sure they know it all!

Zoom is one we’ve heard a lot about recently – and it’s one we use ourselves at the office as we can all see each other and chat while working remotely.  There are also a variety of other teleconference options and aps available  – any one of those will probably work for you in the same way.

Fortunately as all of our dinner party games are downloadable it makes them really easy to share with isolated friends which means you can play with people all over the country – not just people near by.

You also don’t need access to a printer – you can play our games by emailing the character booklet file to the guests and telling them which page their character starts on.  (Use the single sided print option as that’s easier for screen use).  Then you can simply keep scrolling through your booklet as you play together on zoom.  You can pause for meal breaks or just run straight through.  With regards to the “inspector MP3s.”  You have a choice here.  You can either play them through your microphone from your end, or with a flying off screen change into something “inspectory” like a hat – you can deliver those speeches in person back on camera as we always include the script too.

For really large groups – we’d suggest using our “Multi-room games“.  Instead of a large unweildy gathering on-line, you can allocate the cast members, get them to record their monologues to video and post those to a page.  You can then create groups from the participants playing to interrogate the suspects.  If you have a large group playing – then create multiple meetings.  We’d also suggest a few photos on a group page for the evidence that you would ordinarily have handled at a live event.  If you can’t mock up photos of the evidence up you need for the event – then just describe it in a statement.