What a super brilliant start to our trip away! The sun has been shining and the children have been beaming all day too.

We started our day with a scavenger hunt whereby, in groups of 4, the children tried to identify different areas of the site with a picture that gave very little away.

We had plenty of top ups of juice and biscuits and enjoyed our lunch in the sunshine.

We then began our survival afternoon. The children had to not only learn about the key elements needed to build a fire, but also the important safety factors to do this safely. We gathered a variety of sticks and got to building our fires. Each child had a go at using a flint fire starter. The sparks really were flying! Eventually, we had 6 toasty fires ready for marshmallows, which the children really enjoyed!

The children then had time to learn the house rules and settle into their rooms.

We enjoyed a tasty evening meal - with no complaints. We had the choice of pasta bolognese or jacket potatoes with all the fillings. There was a salad bar, which a surprising amount of children did indeed visited. We then had chocolate ice cream for pudding, which resulted in lots of happy children.

Unbelievably, our day was not yet over! We then wrapped up warm and got ourselves out into the darkness, torches in hand, to do a bit of orienteering. The children were fantastic!

We finished our evening up with an evening drink and a couple of stories. The children all managed to settle pretty well after a busy first day. We will feed back with more updates on whether this continues tomorrow!