It may be pouring with rain but who says you can’t have fun? So long as you’re careful about cars, gutters are amazing. I’d recommend wellies! Then you can stand in them and make a dam; race leaves down them; or just splash. Our favourite is drawing in chalk on a stone and then putting it in the water and seeing how long it takes for the rain to wash it off.

Who can spot the most birds on the way to school? How many different types can you see? What’s your favourite?

It’s amazing how many there are if you look. Our favourite is a hedge full of sparrows making a huge amount of noise. You can sneak up and look in and see how many you can see. They normally stop singing at that point but if you’re still and quiet they’ll start up again eventually.

It took me ages to work out that if you want to climb a tree, it helps if you find the right one. We’re lucky to have a nearby square with lots of big old conifers in it.

We love ones you can sit in and bounce the branches up and down. Or ones you can hang from. We are a bit scared to climb high but we love climbing along. Sometimes I hang a bag from a branch and dare B to see if she can get it down.

Get a basket and head outside to look for potions ingredients. Best to go somewhere not too neat. We found moss; old conkers; stringy stuff; fluffy stuff; and lots of different plants and leaf types we could tear into little bits.

Once gathered we went back inside and found some food colouring, glitter and little bottles and made something that looked cool and spooky.

If you’re lucky enough to come across an iced over pond or puddle there are lots of options. Best to smash it last. Before that have a go at skating stones over the top or throwing them at the ice to see if they’ll go through. This shell went straight through and down. The next one skidded over the surface. You could have a competition to see who can get theirs to sink or skid?

Check for air bubbles trapped under the ice. They’re really cool.

When you smash it, see if you can get pieces of ice out. Obviously don’t fall in or step on it!

It gets so dark so quickly after school, it’s a good time for a night time excursion. No need to go far. Just take a couple of torches and head into the garden or nearby green space and see what you can find.

Everything looks more interesting in the dark. You could do ‘find 5 interesting things’ or look for animal tracks or listen for night time sounds. Our favourite is to pick bits of plants and make them into something in the torch light.

It doesn’t have to be on a beach. Anywhere where things might get washed up or drift. We found that there’s a tendency for beaches not to be tidied as regularly in the winter and suddenly there’s lots of stuff washing up.

It’s really interesting to see what’s there and where it might have come from. We found bits of old shoes, pallets, lots of tree logs and bits of plastic. Nothing valuable yet but we’ll keep looking and have lots of conversations along the way about how to stop plastics getting in the water.

We learnt you can do this in lots of places you wouldn’t expect. It doesn’t have to be with sticks. We turned our trampoline into one at one point. The picture is the first day of the challenge when, completely unprepared, we scrabbled to find something to do on the bit of land outside my mum’s flat.

If you want to make a big amazing one, beaches tend to have a lot of wood on them after the winter storms and country parks and wooded areas are always very helpful.

The joy of feeding birds is that there are so many different kinds to choose from. You can put seeds outside and watch robins, blue tits and blackbirds find them. Or take some seeds or bread out and find some pigeons or seagulls.

Pigeons are probably the safer option. They’re always happy to come and say hello. Being high risk bird feeders, our favourite thing is to go to the pier, eye the seagulls, and then throw bread or chips off the edge. They’re very good at catching it mid drop.

Supermarket car parks are a good place for them too. There’s normally a couple of babies there from last year, practicing their scrounging skills.

And finally… the joys of finding a good stick. Surely the best and classic option? Any weather, anywhere, there are always sticks to be found. Some are massive, some are tiny. Once found, they can be thrown, spun, twirled and hugged. They can also become an amazing array of different items (tails, swords, trumpets, etc). They’re also useful as walking sticks and to get other things down from trees.

This time last year we adopted ‘sticky’. It’s been much better behaved than our other pets and has come in very useful in a variety of ways.