This was my daughter's first taste of a children's activity camp, so neither she nor I knew quite what to expect. At pick-up time I found her chatting to a new friend, occupied and cheerful, after a visibly full day. Under a hand-crafted bejewelled paper crown, her face showed the smudged remains of a once-beautiful swirly pink face-paint design, and her hands clutched a bag full of rapidly disintegrating biscuits she'd proudly created earlier. She was absolutely delighted. 'Can we come here again?' were the first words out of her mouth as we left the building.

House of Fun is a children's activity 'camp' which runs in the school holidays at St Ebbe's Primary School. The programme is headed by year 6 teacher Jake Motion, and is a family venture, with Jake's sister, a professional artist, leading the art activities, and his mother, a former chef, organising the cookery classes. The atmosphere is warm and friendly; the staff are cheerful and the children busily at ease, and the school is a lovely space with very good facilities. House of Fun’s approach is to offer children a selection of activities which can be energetic, artistic, educational and practical, with a focus on individual choice. A lot of the fun things our children do regularly are chosen for them, so the chance to make their own decisions in this way is for many a valuable one. It’s no surprise that there’s also a clear emphasis on silliness and entertainment – kids are supposed above all to be enjoying themselves. Less obviously, this half-term’s activities also explored issues of sustainability, with materials from Oxford’s Orinoco Scrapstore being used in some really impressive junk modelling, on show in the form of detailed rockets and robots made by some of the older children earlier in the week.

Our girl may have been new to the activity camp scene, but at 5 and a half years old she was more than ready, and by all accounts (hers and the kindly House of Fun staff) she threw herself into the experience. She's not a particularly shy child, but it's testament to warmth of the staff and the atmosphere of the camp that she was able to relax and enjoy herself in an unfamiliar environment where she knew no one. I'd expected her to be exhausted after such a full day, but if anything she was energised by the experience. Parents of five-year-olds will know they can be frustratingly unforthcoming about what they've been doing all day, so I was thrilled to get an unusually detailed account of her doings at House of Fun, which included, in no specific order: craft activities, bouncy castle, adventure playground, face-painting, football, and cookery. Quite likely there was more she didn't tell me about, and certainly there were other activities and games which the whole group took part in together. Screens are used sparingly, but to particularly good effect as the children wait for collection at the end of the day, when watching a film in a darkened hall is good way for everyone to wind down.