How do you get the kids playing outside when the nights are drawing in? We explore the local shrubland; play hide and seek in the dark, in the park; have a conker gathering party; kick stones; feed the baby seagulls in the supermarket car park; try and catch raindrops; go on a bike ride; race leaves down the gutter in pouring rain; try going different routes on the way home and hunt 67s.
80 – Exploring the bit of scrubland behind the house
Monday 13 October. Cloudy. 14°C
It’s a Monday evening after school and it’s getting dark a lot earlier than it used to. B wants to go out and play but she isn’t coming up with any ideas. We decide we’ll continue our (so far fruitless) hunting for foxes and hedgehogs around the back of the house.
There is a bit of industrial land there with lots of brambles and overgrown grass and weedy areas. It’s a gift, frankly, to bored ten year olds. We step as quietly as we can to see if we can find something. No foxes or hedgehogs, but we find holes in the long grass where some things made a route through. We shine a torch into the brambles to see if we can see a den. There isn’t a fox to be seen but it’s a hidden world in there. We both agree that if we were foxes we’d want to live there.
B finds a spider web containing one small spider and one large daddy long legs. It’s not going well for the latter. Then we find piles and piles of conkers and B squeaks with excitement. There’s clearly been a whole trees worth falling where no one wanders by. B starts planning a conker picking party. She won’t pick any up except one – a perfect pair of twins in a case – which is lying on the floor.
As we head home we find ways to make shadows in the light from the nearby buildings. The grabber handle makes an impressive sight.
78 – Hide and seek in the dark, in the park.
Tuesday 14 October. Dark. 14°C
After school the next day and we’re looking for something to play again. This time we make it as far as the local park, complete with torches, and kick the dust looking for things to do. I start off setting B challenges (“Touch 10 trees. Go!”) then wonder if we can be braver.
L: “Ok. How’s this? I’ll go and hide – with my torch on. You’ve got to find the torch light. When I see you coming I’m going to move, and you have to keep me in sight by following the light”.
It’s a bit overcomplicated but it works quite well. I head towards a tree about fifty metres away and wait. I forgot to tell B to put her torch on and when she sneaks up on me, I get a proper shock. It’s creepy in the dark! She counts to ten while I set off and then follows me all round ending up back where we started.
B: “You’re not hiding!”
I hadn’t meant to. I don’t want to lose her.
We swap over. She hides. When I find her she goes fast and actively tries to lose me. After ten minutes I’ve lost her completely. She’s using the dark to hide very effectively. In the end I shout and she returns smugly.
There’s definitely an art to hiding in the dark. I like the bit with the torches on though – it’s do-able but really different. Autumn is proving quite exciting.
76 – Conker gathering party
Thursday 16 October. Dark. 13°C
B hasn’t forgotten the huge numbers of conkers lying behind the back of the house. She’s getting her friends round and they’re going to get them all. It’s an after school autumn conker party! It’s pitch black by the time they get round there but they’ve got torches and are ready.
With hindsight I think they needed more baskets. After fifteen minutes or so they’re all filled up and lots of conkers left. They think maybe they’ll do it again next week. After school playing out autumn conker party #2?
74 – Feeding the baby seagulls in the supermarket car park
Sunday 19 October. Damp. 15°C
We may have failed to get to Flatholm Island to see the baby seagulls in July but now we can’t miss them. They’re big, brown and in all the supermarket car parks. They’re persistent, funny and very noisy. They caw constantly for mum to feed them, have no sense of car etiquette and no fear.
It’s probably not the best idea to feed them but they’re clearly finding food in the car park somewhere (i’m guessing the bins) and it’s intensely satisfying. We bought them some crab sticks on the grounds that it’s more healthy than rubbish. We made a 74 on the floor (well I did. B’s not touching the crab sticks. She says they’re icky) and waited.
We didn’t wait very long. There are three on the roof. They look like older babies with brown heads but grey wings. They come straight over and look at us. We look back. It takes them 5 seconds to decide it’s worth coming a bit closer and in a minute, after a few squabbles, all the crab sticks are gone.
73 – Kicking stones
Saturday 18 October. Damp. 13°C
We’re meeting friends on the ‘hill behind asda’. It’s not the most pristine bit of land. Once it was a rubbish dump but now it’s a nature reserve with a river and a hill to climb though no playgrounds. The kids are looking for something to do to entertain them as we walk about. There’s not many flowers left now. B refuses my suggestion that she pick clover for the bunnies (poor bunnies). We head down to the river and they get distracted with pond skaters and ducks for a bit but then get bored again. FINALLY i remember kicking stones.
It was a bit of a staple last winter but it’s got forgotten with so many more entertainment options in summer. They find a stone each and are happy from then on, occasionally losing them and either finding them again, or replacing them with a better one. They don’t get around to naming these or taking them home as trophies but I’m sure it will happen at some point.
59 – Catching raindrops on string
Saturday 1 November. Rainy. 13°C
B’s idea this. It’s pouring with rain but she’s got a plan. She grabs the plastic string from her bead kit and heads outside. First she tries tying it on the garden chair. There are raindrops forming on the bottom of the bar along the back and as they fall they make the string twang.
She tries it on a bush next but the raindrops don’t form on it as well so she tries twanging the string to catapult them all off the bush. Needless to say she gets quite wet. Later, going out, we see the washing line with perfectly formed raindrops all along it, and twang that too.
58 – Exploring by bike
Sunday 2 November. Occasionally rainy. 13°C
B has a bike again. She seriously outgrew the last one and it took a while to find a replacement but now she’s full of the love of the bike. We’re out pretty much every day on little hops. Today I want to try and get a bit further. I have visions of us doing my favourite bike ride (about an hour) down to the sea and back. She’s keen but we’re on a time limit. Then it pours with rain. We stop and shelter under a bridge and re-assess…
In the end we give up trying to get somewhere and just explore instead. The bridge has an amazing echo. We go under more bridges and find they echo too. There are lots of puddles and B has a huge amount of fun free wheeling through them with her legs up and leaving a trail behind. We end up half way along the route at the big hill… which we work out a new way round so we don’t have to ride up it. Lazy maybe, but very satisfying.
51 – Cycling at night
Monday 10 November. Rainy. 13°C
Well here’s a scary one. B’s had her new bike a few weeks now and is still desperate to get out on it but it’s getting dark very early. I bought her lights, a fluorescent jacket and fluorescent bike clips with the bike so reckon there’s nothing stopping us going out. I change my mind when she’s on the road though.
Generally it’s fine if she’s on quiet roads and bike tracks. It’s fun and different to be out with no light and we both really enjoy it. I try and get her back to pick more pine cones but she wants to use her wayfinding skills to explore. This is more problematic as she heads off on busier and busier roads and doesn’t yet have full road awareness. On the upside the lights of the cars means they’re much easier to see and she’s definitely improving.
48 – Chasing leaves down the gutter
Friday 14 November. Very rainy. 11°C
Storm Claudia has rolled in and it’s raining and raining and raining. We’ve done a lot of rainy challenges this autumn but we haven’t yet managed to get out when it’s really pouring. We keep missing it. Not this time.
In retrospect we probably should have stopped to put our waterproof trousers on. We don’t and we get soaked as we race up the neighbouring street with leaves in hand. I have a pretty red one and B has a brown oak leaf (from the haul a few days ago) and we’ve got back ups in our pockets. At the top of a slope, we hold them in the gutter water and let go at the same time.
They go really fast! B’s wins. She knew it would.
B: “The red ones the wrong shape. It’s going to be slower”.
We repeat and this time the red one gets caught half way and doesn’t make it at all. We have a go with the replacements but we’re pretty wet at this point. So we go back in to dry off.
45 – Following different paths
Monday 17 November. Clear skies. 8°C
One for ten year olds this. Walking home from doggy time, B is bored and then has an idea.
B: “I know. I’ll go this way, you go that way and we’ll see who gets home first”.
She’s a good independent walker now, exploring on her way home from school every day. The wayfinding skills from February have really developed. I think this is a great idea.
L: “Ok. Where are you going?”
She’s planning to parallel walk me to the next junction (me on the lane, her on the road) and then try walking via the park home. I’m pretty sure my way will be faster but don’t tell her. We agree a normal walking pace.
She beats me to the first junction by quite a way and is a spec in the distance at one point but the deviation via the park is too long and I get home about 2 minutes ahead. We agree that 1) it’s interesting the park way was that much longer and 2) we should try it the other way round next time.
It occurs to me writing this up that there is a way to do this with little ones. I’ve been looking for an ornate park for a while with different paths on it where you can go different ways. Haven’t come across one yet but maybe B has outgrown that anyway.
44 – Hunting 67s
Tuesday 18 November. Sunny. 9°C
Needless to say, this is not my idea. Turns out B will walk any distance for any length of time if she can spot things with the number 67 on on the way. Each time she does she takes a picture and says ‘siiiix-seeeveeeen’ and does the hands. 10 year old crazes are sometimes very weird!
