What is a LARP you may ask. Well, a LARP is an acronym that stands for Live Action Role Play. This is where people dress up as their favourite mystical, medieval or modern war characters and fashion their own weapons to go into battle with. All weapons are made from foam along with any armor that is worn. Players meet in a field or woody area and battle for their Kingdoms or teams.
As the children start to go home for the evening, the K.I.D.S. Inc. staff take this opportunity to plan and brainstorm ideas for new activities. While reminiscing and sharing stories, the topic of LARPing was brought up and thus, the idea of a K.I.D.S. Inc. LARP was born!
We planned our LARP for the Feet on the Street day on Friday, and started our preparations on the Monday before. The staff introduced the idea of LARPing to the kids, we explained what it was, and the different genres and some of the rules. The staff were super excited about the LARP, but the kids looked at us like were were crazy. We all got busy drawing and designing our weapons, and brainstorming what materials we would need.
During the designing process we were asked many, many questions like, “Can I make the Minecraft Axe?!” and “How many weapons can we make?”
On the Tuesday we started constructing our weapons. The staff brought in cardboard and newspapers that they had lying around, as well as pool noodles, foam, tape and anything else they could get their hands on.
As we continued with our construction on Wednesday, we could see the excitement rising in the kids! We were always being asked, “When can we work on our weapons?!” We had to always tell them, “It’s 9:30 in the morning – we have the whole day!”
On Thursday we picked our “Kingdoms” and our colours. For the final touch we painted the weapons and armor in preparation for Friday’s Battle.
Friday came and when the staff walked into the room we asked, “Who’s ready for LARP?” And all the kids cheered and were very eager to show everyone their weapons and armor. At 10:00 we left K.I.D.S. Inc. and headed to the battlefield.
We received some pretty strange looks as we walked along the sidewalk in our armor and with our weapons – but we did not care and held our heads high! We arrived at Brock Cordova park and we set up the battlefield. We split into our 3 kingdoms – Kingdom Nike, Kingdom Olympus, and King TRI (the staff kingdom). The battle was epic and everyone fought for their kingdoms like true warriors.
It was great to see everyone so excited for this activity, and we hope to do this again.
Lauren