Today we held a Children’s Easter Challenge event at Lord Louis Library in Newport. We set out ten challenges, comprising puzzles, board games, code-breaking and finding hidden information in the non-fiction section of the children’s library.

All the children went home with a small prize. We were pleased to meet so many new people, and we had some very positive feedback on our event.

At Bletchley Juniors Codebreaking Club this week we used a spiral code. The activity was the food chain. I encoded a chain of either three, four or five plants/animals/birds in the wrong order. After they had decoded the creatures, I gave the children pictures which they had to match to the creature, then put in the correct order. As the children became more confident I gave them spirals which went in a different direction. I even sneaked in a bit of Ancient Greek, explaining the meaning of phytoplankton and zooplankton.

We played Chinese Chequers again at our Adults Board Games Club this week, due to a change in people attending. We also played Zenix, a chain building game, and 3D Noughts and Crosses.