Ideas for a kids' fun day on a low budget

[FarangGirl]

I live in Bangkok and help run a weekend kids' English club in a local slum. All are volunteers and we don't have a budget, pay for all resources ourselves.

It's Thai new year next month and we want to do a fun day for the day the club falls over the new year. Our budget is low and we need to do everything ourselves.

Any good ideas for fun activities we could do? Kids range in age from 4 to 12. We usually have about 25 although a fun day could attract more. We hold the kids' club in the local community centre so have space we can use. For Covid safety we want to be outdoors as much as possible.

Ideas we have thus far:
*Arm painting/glitter tattoos
*Jewellery making
*Pinata
*Pin the tail on the elephant

Looking for some more inspiration! Really want to give these kids a good time, they don't have easy lives. Trying to get a budget for a magic show and/or a bouncy castle.

There are some great group game & song ideas that we use for Brownie/Scout sessions that you can find online which are free and the kids generally really enjoy them.

Traditional Thai dance class? You could arrange a teacher for the day and they’d be doing something within their culture. Thai dance is a dying art.

I suggest this as I know someone who did this in a similar situation (remote impoverished Thai rural village rather than city slums)

Traditional primary school "sports day" races (3 legged race, egg and spoon, sack race)
Other traditional games from UK: apple bobbing, donut on string thing (obvs would work with other Thai treats)
Parlour games: musical chairs (adults also enjoy this, I've found!), Are you there Moriarty (can get a bit vicious!!)

Scavenger hunt: things in nature, (if this is safe) smallest and tallest member of the team.

Musical statues

Human tableau : team members arrange themselves into a scene. (Eg badminton game three people were the net and two were players)

Follow a treasure hunt with clues.

Learn some local sign language

Make dens and eat lunch in them.

@WineIsMyCarb

Traditional primary school "sports day" races (3 legged race, egg and spoon, sack race) Other traditional games from UK: apple bobbing, donut on string thing (obvs would work with other Thai treats) Parlour games: musical chairs (adults also enjoy this, I've found!), Are you there Moriarty (can get a bit vicious!!)

We tried the doughnut on a string thing once. It was chaos! As soon as you bring out the high value food (like doughnuts) the kids were just focused on eating them.

They are lovely and sweet kids but there's no discipline at all! These are kids who often have very little structure in their lives (a lot of absent parents - due to working long hours but also problems like alcoholism and drug addiction). Anything that involves waiting for a turn tends to lead to chaos.

Thanks for the ideas.

Games need to be REALLY simple and not involve too much explanation or waiting around.

Anything complex and we lose them.

Would a disco-type thing work? Eg put some dance-y music on and get a little battery powered bubble machine and some streamer wands? Might go well with the tattoos etc and you could do hair chalk or face paint or similar?

Someone donated to us a suitcase full of things we can use as gifts, including bubble wands so we'll give them out.

Hair chalk might be a nice idea! Face paint no because of masks (still compulsory here even outdoors) - that's why we thought tattoos and also arm painting.

Would some if the older ones know Thai dancing and take a turn at teaching?

Water balloon fight?

British Bulldog or musical statues

@Calandor

Water balloon fight?

British Bulldog or musical statues

Songkran is all about getting wet so that would have been great in normal circumstances! But actually water splashing has been banned this year so we might not be allowed.

How about a sweet hunt? Similar to an Easter egg hunt?

@RedWhiteOrBlue

How about a sweet hunt? Similar to an Easter egg hunt?

That's a good idea! They'd enjoy that.

Have a look at “camp games” on youtube - I’ve used some of these with groups of 7-11 year olds. “Whoosh-ball” (you don’t need an actual ball!) was popular and they continued to play ‘evolution’ (a rock paper scissors based game) for weeks after their trip away. Here’s where I found these games
m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL929CC4949C2AF3A9
All outdoors - some more socially distanced than others!