Fun Ideas for Pony Care
FUN IDEAS FOR PONY CARE
- Divide children into teams. Write down all the points of the pony beginning with the letters S, C & F. Can they point them out on the pony or write on sticky labels and stick them on a pony?
- Practice bandaging on each others’ legs – then have a three legged bandaging race – do the bandages stay on?
- Team ‘tack assembly’ race. Undo bridles, put in buckets, each team member races to get a named piece (help the younger ones) and races back with it, then next one goes until all pieces are collected. (You could even include a tack cleaning session at this stage – good way to make tack cleaning fun at Camp). Winning team is first team to put bridle back together correctly.
- Design and draw the most dangerous field – explain the dangers. Use farm playset for younger members.
- Blindfold game. Identify grooming kit / bridle parts / bits etc. by feel. Once identified each member has to explain their use.
- Treating a wound. Use tomato ketchup and a grey pony and show the correct method of dealing with a wound. Then have wound treatment competition to see who is the best Vet.
- Put out different pieces of unusual equipment / feed samples etc. and divide children into teams and see if they can recognise everything and explain its use. You could also do this with the non-equine achievement badges eg. photos of wild animals / working dogs / birds.
- Charades. Children mime something eg. picking out feet, putting on NZ rug etc. – rest of children guess. You can make up some cards with photos from magazines eg. dandy brush / studs etc and they can mime the objects in teams. These are always useful for a rainy day.
- Guess what I am. Divide into teams and give each child an object eg. Farrier tool and they have to explain to their team members what they do.! You may need a copy of The Manual to hand and allow some learning time beforehand. Or you could also use playdoh and get teams to make the object.
- Question time. Get each child to ask the next one a question on what they learnt in your pony care session to check the learning. You can also do this with your riding sessions.
Hilary Wakefield