Ideas to get kids out in the garden in Spring. We savour some un-seasonally nice weather with an early Easter egg hunt; make a den out of the trampoline using garden cuttings; and using the garden waste to celebrate day 300 with style.
302 – An early Easter egg hunt
Wednesday 5 March. Sunny. 10°C
It’s the last full day of lovely sunny weather and I decide it’s never too early for an Easter egg hunt. The shops are full of eggs and B is in need of a mid-week energy boost.
I love Easter egg hunts. When B was little we’d pepper the garden with large very visible eggs and she’d totter round with a basket picking them up. She’s ten next week so I reckon she needs a lot more challenge these days. I’ve got 8 large eggs to hide and, following the lessons of the first scavenger hunt, I don’t hide them too completely but try and put them in places it’s going to take some ingenuity to reach. I’m learning that she gives up if it’s too hard but can go the extra mile for a clear incentive.
The garden tree is, of course, the best option by far and I’m quite proud of myself for managing to climb it and hide one at the top. I also put one in the basket of the pulley system that’s still up there from previous challenges. The trampoline den (see 306 below) is also still up and is helpful. Given our pet rabbits destroy everything they can reach all hiding places are at least a metre high.
B is enthusiastic about this one. She heads for the tree first and has trouble spotting the egg at the top. I’m right in thinking she’s not particularly good at looking for things and gets frustrated if it’s not easy. She really likes fetching them once she’s found them though. I wonder if that’s just a B thing or common across her age group.
It takes about twenty minutes for her to track them all down. It occurs to me that this is a sort of treasure/scavenger hunt that it’s easier to do in a small space. The is that it doesn’t lead anywhere at the end – resulting in a clear need to go inside to eat lots of chocolate. Still fun though. I’m looking forward to some more complex but similar challenges as Easter gets nearer.
< Collecting things: Feathers (303) & Sticks (301)>
306 – Turning the old trampoline into a den
Saturday 1 March. Sunny. 10°C
It’s a warm sunny day for the beginning of March and we’re finally ready for some longer garden challenges. The Christmas tree den (see challenge 324) is not really working and we decide to use the bits and see if we can get a different sort of den somewhere else. We consider using the old Wendy house but then wonder if it’s possible to use the trampoline. It’s old, colonised by rabbits (our pet bunnies like bouncing on it more than B these days) and currently not tied down after winter storms. We pull it towards the front of the garden and consider.
Looking at our resources, we have long thin willow sticks, branches from the Christmas tree and, newest of all, big sections of the beech hedge that were cut a few days ago. We have a go at making a roof out of the willow but using wool to tie it into a square shape. It takes a while but eventually we get it big enough to rest on the top of the trampoline. It only covers half the roof space so we use some of the big branches of pine and beech to cover the rest. Then we squeeze the rest round the edges.
It’s not the most professional looking den I’ve ever seen but it sort of works. You can squeeze yourself inside and it feels like you’re hiding (surely the most important thing). I wonder if we can use anything else to fill in the gaps around the edges and decide to keep it up for a bit and see if it develops further.
305 – Returning to the beach to make sandcastles >
< 307 – Playing on the beach with kids in Spring
291 – B improves the trampoline den
Sunday 16 March. Sunny. 8°C
It’s the day of B’s birthday party and I’m in full on preparation mode all morning sorting snacks and party bags. B isn’t helping so I suggest she does the challenge to help. I give her half an hour to improve the trampoline den which is still standing a couple of weeks after our first attempt.
B rises to this with exuberance. She grabs an old rug and some cushions for the main section and then spends quite a bit of time arranging logs underneath to make a hidey hole for the rabbits. She does a sign and I give her a hand with some recently chopped down climbing clematis which adds to the wall structure. We then lie in it and look at the sky and listen to the birds. It’s very relaxing.
300 – Using the garden waste to make things
Friday 7 March. Cloudy. 12°C
It’s day 300 of the 365 day nature play challenge… It feels like a milestone. Unfortunately, it’s also a Friday which means we have about twenty minutes around school and clubs to fit something in. I reckon it’s time for some natural art work. We don’t do this a lot as it’s not really B’s cup of tea but we’ve got a garden full of sticks and cut stuff from various challenges, some daffodils and a poinsettia that need to be thrown out too and the first garden waste collection coming next week. It feels like everything’s coming together.
Making it also feels like a bit of a review of what we’ve done so far. There are cuttings from the Christmas tree from when we tried to make it into a den (324)… and from the beech hedge which we used to make 349. We also use the pinecones which we used to make an animal feeder (337). We have the feathers and sticks we collected last week (303 & 301) too and quite a lot of the things we collected for potions (355) are also kicking about.
We start off with the bigger more dead things (the Christmas tree pine needles, sticks and beech twigs) and decorate it with the daffodil heads, poinsettia leaves (we’re careful with these – as they’re poisonous – keeping them away from the rabbits and washing hands after) and pinecones. B gets distracted with little stones, finding some she painted last year and hiding them in the numbers. We take some pictures and a video and enjoy the fruits of our labours… then we break it up and it all gets deposited in the green bags ready for collection.
