Finding things for kids to collect outside and on walks: feathers, twigs, ghost leaves, catkins and weird squidgy blossom things.
303 – Collecting things: Feathers
Tuesday 4 March. Sunny. 11°C
We have an unusual dilemma. We have been out for a very successful 90 minute walk and had a great time but I don’t think we can use it for the blog. We’ve offered ourselves up as amateur dog walkers and met a lovely dog in need of extra exercise. B is ecstatically happy and enjoying herself hugely (as am I actually) but as it’s not our dog I think we’ll probably keep it off the blog except for saying, if you’re lucky enough to have access to a dog, walking it is a very lovely thing.
This means we are surprisingly lacking in challenge material despite all the fresh air and exercise. As we walk I frantically look for something we can do at the same time. B has very little attention to spare so I wonder if it’s time to go back and pick up some of the things she used to do when she was younger. We had a lovely time with walking on walls and doing funny pavement walks over half term (see London Challenge week) after all.
We head out onto the sports field and scattered over the ground at regular intervals are some very white and fluffy feathers. I vaguely remember we used to collect them and could get her walking further by getting her to look for them. I have a go. B grudgingly agrees to keep an eye out but fails totally. However, once the dog has been returned to its owners and we’re walking home, she gets much more involved. I challenge her to find 5. She manages that in about 60 seconds. She’s grown up a lot!
We ponder what birds they’re from. I suspect most are pigeons but we find a teeny little one and wonder if it could be from something smaller.
We have the common feather collecting issues of where to put them. I start off with the side pocket of my backpack… then B pulls something out of it and the entire collection gets blown away down the road. B finds this hysterical. I move to a trouser pocket instead. inevitably we then find rather too many – though thankfully not a dead bird. I ponder if it met a fox or had a fight with another bird (it looks like pigeon feathers to me) but B doesn’t appreciate the line of thought.
Our final challenge comes when we get back home. We try and make a 303 with the feathers on the doorstep and the mild breeze plays havoc with our positioning. We frantically try and block it but is keeps swooping round our obstacles.
302 – An early easter egg hunt in the back garden >
< 304 – Feeding the squirrels in the park
305 – Collecting things: Twigs
Thursday 6 March. Threatening rain. 11°C
We’re on another dog walk and are looking for something other than feathers to collect. B suggests leaves but it’s early March and not the best time. There are some brown ones still around but I don’t think it’s the season. As we walk we look out for options. There’s not a lot growing yet. Then we find ourselves back in the same woods we picked wands in a few weeks ago.
“TWIGS!”
We could say sticks, but I reckons twigs are smaller, more quirky and easier to carry. This is only my opinion. We ponder options. I want to look for curvy ones which we can make the 3 and 0 of the 301 with. B embraces that but then we branch out into different sorts of quirky. We find one that’s a proper ‘C’ shape and I default to looking for wand options again. I feel like we’re only skimming the surface of the options.
300 – Making a 300 out of garden waste >
< 302 – An early easter egg hunt in the back garden
296 – Collecting things: Ghost leaves
Tuesday 11 March. Sunny. 8°C
We’re on the hunt for what we call ghost leaves… I think this is just us. We’ve got a few bushes and trees round us which hold on to last years leaves well into the Spring. They’re brown but they fade and get worn away, leaving just the structure behind. They’re really beautiful. For our dog walk today I’m challenging B to find some.
It’s an interesting hunt. Some areas have absolutely none at all. Clearly some types of leaves are more prone to disintegrating this way than others. We find work through piles of old leaves (keeping an eye out for less savoury things) and in some find none at all. In a corner we find a teeny one, completely worn away so it’s just the thinnest gossamer thread holding it together but it tears apart as we pick it up. We end up with a few different varieties and a plan to continue to keep an eye out. I suspect with Spring they’ll disappear quickly now.
295 – Spotting frogspawn by the light of the full moon >
282 – Collecting things: Catkins
Tuesday 25 March. Cloud and sun, 14°C
We’re finding catkins again. It’s over a month since we had our first catkin challenge but now they’re everywhere and we’re on the hunt for them again. They are easy to make into a 282 (they’re at the long dangling wibbly stage now) and we also crush them, shred them and pretend they’re caterpillars.
281 – A scavenger hunt for the brownies >
< 283 – How many insects can you find in a minute?
280 – Collecting things: Weird squidgy things
Thursday 27 March. Cloudy, 12°C
Behind our house is a fairly normal looking tree (I’m not an expert!) which, at this time of year, produces large numbers of weird, oval shaped, cushioned things which fall all over the path. I’m guessing they’re blossoms. They’re great to squish and we have fun collecting them and making them into a 280. It occurs to me this could be a wider task of ‘looking for things that are a bit weird’.
279 – Spotting things: Nests >
< 281 – A scavenger hunt for the brownies
275 – Collecting things: Blossom
Tuesday 1 April. Sunny. 17°C
It’s April at last and, as if to celebrate, the magnolias are fully out and their blossom is beginning to fall everywhere. We’ve had a lot of collecting things ideas and are planning to have a break from these for a bit but we thought one more could be fitted in before closing the book on a March obsession!
Both B and I love picking up the blossoms. They’re big and white, pink and purple and a lot of them are going brown. It’s a race to be the one to find most non-brown ones. We also spot a beautiful purple blossom that’s dropped as well and lots of cherry tree type ones. The latter is falling like leaves in autumn and B tries to catch it, jumping about and running.
When we get home we make a satisfyingly big 275, even if the blossoms have turned more brown just in the thirty minutes it takes to get them home.
Leave a Reply