With this beautiful weather we are experiencing I thought it may be helpful to share some of our favourite garden family activities, as more of us are spending time in our gardens!
Assault Course
With active young ones a firm favourite has to be an assault course.
Build an assault course out of garden furniture, slides/swings and other things already in the garden, throw in a bed sheet to crawl under and a ladder for little feet to alternate between. I also like to throw in a ball on a spade balancing section, balancing small bean bags on heads is another fun one and throwing balls as cans stacked up is also a fun twist on an assault course.
Growing plants and vegetables.
This is a huge hit for us in our house. I never knew quite how much I would enjoy gardening and also how much the children would enjoy it too! We have been planting seeds from vegetables (peppers and tomatoes) and watch them grow and repotting them! Our kitchen got slightly overtaken so we even bought a small green house to move them into the garden! We enjoy watering them daily and as they are getting bigger attaching them to stakes. We now have runner beans, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, sun flowers, lupins and a wide range of herbs in our collection!
Water fights.
Whilst the weather has been really lovely, we have definitely embraced the garden and getting wet. From good old slide into the paddling pool fun, sprinkler in the garden, to water pistol fights and water balloon fights and evening catching fish in nets on slightly cooler days our paddling pools have had their monies worth this year already.
Chalk.
I have found this has kept the children entertained for far longer than I initially thought. We started off drawing around each other and then our shadows. We have made artwork on the slabs, I made a frame from masking tape and then sectioned parts off and the children coloured in different sections and then pulled the tape off and hey presto, artwork! We are currently having lots of fun drawing fire all over the garage and slabs and then using the hose and water pistols to put the fire out (wash the chalk away). This is great fun! We have also created some maths puzzles which have gone down very well. I put down 1-10 on each slab and then tell a story… I have 2 children and they decided to go for a walk. They met 2 more children (stand on 4) and they went to play in a park and there were 3 more children there (stand on 7) and then one went home as it was there dinner time (stand on 6) etc. Also a great opportunity to draw a colourful rainbow!
Bikes
We have taken this time to really get to grips with riding a bike. My youngest had one for Christmas, however has not shown much interest. He had a balance bike the year before, again showed little interest. We also had not strongly encouraged it, so I was hopeful with a little practise each day he would get it. It was wonderful to see his confidence grow and grow. The first time he turned a corner he fell off as he learnt that if you turn too sharply that can happen. To my surprise he got right up and straight back on determined to crack it. It was at this point that I realised every activity we do with our little ones, they are learning and developing their characters without having to sit down at a table and do traditional schoolwork.
images supplied by: Tree photo created by jcomp – www.freepik.com School photo created by alexeyzhilkin – www.freepik.com People photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com