1. Mud Pies

Oh, what fun!! I would recommend an apron as we had to strip Mini Mumbler’s clothes off as he was covered in mud!!

Mix up your mud mixture and then divide onto plates and decorate your pie with items from around the garden. We had toppings of petals, gravel and leaves!

 

 

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2. Leaf Printing

Whilst on a walk find some colourful flowers and some juicy leaves. Grab a bit of thin plain cloth and a rubber mallet. Fold the cloth in half and place the flowers and leaves inside the folded cloth. Let your kids hit the cloth with the rubber mallet and a beautiful picture will appear!

 

 

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3. Den Building

A great project for local woods! You may be lucky enough for dens to already have been made and then you can add on your dead twigs and sticks to make the den bigger. If not, start by making a tipi formation against a low lying branch and keep adding! It will keep the kids entertained for hours!

 

 

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4. Build a Bug House

This is quite an elaborate bug house built by some friends during lockdown which I was amazed at, but if you’re looking for something a bit easier and more child friendly, use a plant pot and then fill with cut grass, twigs, pieces of bamboo, acorns or pine cones etc and build it up until it is full before placing in the garden for bugs to enjoy!!

 

 

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5. Paint with Water

This is a great one to keep toddlers occupied! We used to play paint the garage door with different sized paint brushes. He would love to spray the garage door too!! To add more colour into this activity, get the chalks out and make some marks on the ground before practising cleaning with the water and paint brushes!!

 

 

 

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6. Leaf Art

Let’s see all the different coloured leaves that we can find in the garden and then using cutting skills create a picture! If you have a hole punch or zig zag scissors this is a fun way to make different shapes!

Add paint to the picture to create different animals such as hedgehogs!

 

 

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7. Race Homemade Boats

We had great fun making boats out of lolly pop sticks and empty margarine containers. We made a raft with a sail and then a paddle steamer with a propeller which was a piece of plastic attached to an elastic band which we wound up. We had a race to see which was the fastest! We then made another paddle boat and raced both of them!

 

 

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8. Make a Daisy Chain

I had so much fun showing my little boy how to make a daisy chain! Whether it is a bracelet, necklace or crown he kept running around the park to find daisies whilst I sat and threaded them!

 

 

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9. Campfire Cooking

When we attended Forest School this was my little boys favourite activity and I was so impressed that he quickly learnt about the safety aspects and what they could and couldn’t do! Try toasting marshmallows, crumpets, make mini pizzas or popcorn!

 

 

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10. Petal Perfume

The best place for us is to take a trip to Nanna’s beautiful garden and collect some petals in a basket! Once home grind them up with a little water, releasing the scent and colour. Add a little more water to create the perfume and then bottle in a small glass jar!

Nature activities

🍃Go on a bug and mini beast hunt
🍃Go cloud spotting. Make some pictures afterwards based on what you’ve seen
🍃Build a bug house
🍃 Make bird feeders

Creative activities

🎨 Find some pebbles and stones and decorate or paint them
🎨 Get some wax crayons and do some bark or leaf rubbing
🎨 Have fun with bubbles
🎨 Make a telephone paper cups – all you need is some string, two cups and a pencil

Games in the garden

🌳Make a trail for your family to follow
🌳Build an obstacle course
🌳Create an alphabet scavenger hunt
🌳 Fly a kite. You could even make one if you don’t have one!
🌳Walk like animals – hop, jump, crawl, slither, pause sloth-like or pounce!
🌳Build a den. Use some old sheets, spend as long in outside as you can. Take some books, picnic or toys into your den.
🌳Play ball, catch, football or tig
🌳If you’ve got a dog, get them involved and teach it some new tricks
🍎If you fancy a snack why not try apple bobbing or donuts on a string!

Activities for when it’s dark

🌌 Attract moths to a torch
🌌 Do some star gazing and learn about constellations
🌌Draw your own constellation pictures
🌌 Going on an evening walk with head torches – there’s a good owl population this year

Educational outdoor activities

🗺Draw a map of your local area or garden
🗺Use a camera or phone to write and photograph a picture story of your outside discoveries

Growing & gardening

🌱Plant some cress heads – the recent McDonald’s Mr Men cups are perfect
🌱 Press flowers or blossom
🌱 Plant up some  hanging baskets, or pots – create a colourful garden

Have fun even if it’s raining

☔️ Dance in the rain
☔️ Puddle jump
☔️ Get rain suits and wellies on and go out to get wet and muddy

Fun outside beyond your garden

🌲 If you live nearby to a stream then try to build a twig raft with twigs and string
🌲 Play Pooh sticks
🌲 Identify trees
🌲 Find some blossom and learn about Japanese celebrations

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🌳🌳🌳Let us know if you have any more garden and outside ideas to share! 🌳🌳🌳

Thank you to fellow North Leeds Mumbler Claire Horn for the above ideas, check out Claire’s page What wood Claire Do? , she makes some lovely bespoke woodwork products. 

We intend to start planting some veggies soon for this years harvest, however he is currently enjoying seeing our daffodils popping up!

I found plenty of creative gardening ideas on the National Children’s Gardening Week website, so thought i’d share a few of my favourites!

Write your name in salad 

1. Fill a seed tray or pot/container with compost and lightly press it down
2. Mark out your name in the compost either using sand or by writing your name into it with a stick
3. Sow some rocket seeds along the letters of your name in the compost
4. Next, sow a border around the name by using some purple basil or purple lettuce seeds. Leave about 5cm between the letters of your name and the border.
5. Sieve or sprinkle fine soil or compost over the seeds. Be gentle so that you don’t move the seeds.
6. Water your tray using the watering can. Be gentle and make sure the watering can has a rose (sprinkler) in the spout so that you don’t wash the seeds out of place.
7. Put the seed tray on your window sill or outside in your garden or balcony. Clip your name as it growns and enjoy eating it!

Grow yourself some crazy green hair

1. Draw or paint some faces on to a plant pot, or glue a photo of you or your friend’s face onto the pot. Make sure your faces don’t have any hair on the top of them.
2. Fill your pots with some compost
3. Put the sees (grass or cress seeds work well)
4. Water the seends. Be careful not to get water onto the faces on the pot!
5. Make sure the soil stays wet and watch as crazy green hair grows out of your head. When it is long enough, try giving it a hair cut!

(You can tick this off your list of ‘100 Things to do before you’re 11’ too!

Make a Sunflower Smile 

1. Fill some small pots with compost.
2. Plant a Sunflower seed in each pot and give it a watering. Put your pot onto a window sill and water it once the seed sprouts, so the compost stays damp.
3. As your sunflower grows, tie the stem of the sunflower loosely to the bamboo cane with your garden string to support your plants.
4. Once the frosty weather is over (usually mid-May) dig a hole in your garden for your sunflower. Ideally dig it next to a wall or a fence that gets lots of sun.
5. Squeeze your sunflower and the compost it’s growing in out of your pot, and plant it in the hole that you’ve dug. Put a bamboo cane next to your sunflower and give your sunflower a good watering.
6. As your sunflower grows, make sure you tie the stem to the bamboo cane loosely with garden string. Try tying it using a ‘figure-of-eight’ knot as this will reduce any rubbing on the stem.
7. When your sunflower appears, gently tease out the seed heads to make a fantastic sunny smiling face.

If you’re really adventurous, try this next one, it looks great! We might give it a try and do a mini version with some of my little one’s old trousers that are too short!

The right trousers

1. Find  spot in the garden where you want to plant your trousers
2. Tie the legs of an old pair of jeans or trousers into knots, so that compost can’t come out of the bottom of the trouser legs
3. Push some bamboo canes into the belt hoops around the trouser waist and tie them there with string. You’ll need to tie in at least three or four canes for each pair of trousers.
4. Push the bamboo canes into the ground so that your trousers are standing up.
5. Now fill your trousers with the compost to just an inch or two below the waist
6. Give the trousers a good watering. If the compost settles and no longer comes close to the waist, top up the trousers with some more compost.
7. Now you can plant the waist of your trousers with your seeds or plants (flowering or edible plants are all fine). If you pick some tumbling plants, they’ll trail down the legs.
8. Try cutting some openings into the trouser legs and putting seeds or plants into the holes for a fun ripped jeans look!

Download all Children’s Gardening Week Activity Sheets here NCGW-Activity-Sheets-All

 

Special thanks to our sister site, Doncaster Mumbler for this super blog

Keeping up with our little bundles of energy can be a struggle so we thought it’d be helpful to put together a list of fun things you can do at home to keep toddlers busy. Here are a few things we looked for:

• Easy to put together and to clean up after ✅
• Kids can do themselves, with supervision, rather than adult-led activities ✅
• Using things we all have at home. The last thing we need is expensive crafts supplies ✅

20 activities to keep toddlers busy at home

• Playdough: Making your own playdough at home is fun and super easy. Click here for a favourite playdough recipe. Add glitter, food colouring and baby oil (smells gorgeous) or even a couple of drops of lavender oil for a sensory experience.
• Practice colours with Twister game: Do you have a Twister game at home? Now you can use it for something different. Select a few small toys of different colours (red, blue, green, yellow) and ask your toddler to fill each circle with toys of the right colour.
• 

• Foam and more foam: Most supermarkets sell super cheap foam bath of different colours on the kids and baby aisle. Let them explore with it in the bath with a few Tupperware boxes of different sizes and plastic cups. Ideal if you have a Tuff Tray at home, but a large empty storage plastic box works just as well.

 

• ‘Washing-up’: Of course you’ll need to clean the items after. Allow them to explore different materials, like plastic Tupperware boxes, wooden spoons, a metal whisk, etc.
• Window stickers: These have worked a treat for us. You can get them in Amazon.
• Stamps: You can get a stamp set very cheaply in Amazon and most large supermarkets.
• ‘Paint on the window’: Do you have a whiteboard pen at home? Let them draw with it on a designated window. But make sure you explain that’s the only place they can do it!
• Potato painting: An old classic.
• Chores – ‘washing’ a wall, kitchen cupboard, etc: You could use a clean spray bottle and fill with water and add lots of small cloths in different colours to make it fun for the kids.
• Magic kitchen cupboard: Empty one of the low cupboards at home and fill it with old pans, Tupperware boxes, lids, etc. Let them empty and fill it which can be useful to occupy them whilst you try and get other things done
• Musical instruments from old bottles filled with uncooked rice: For see-through bottles, you can dye your rice first! Add some water and glitter and you have a sensory bottle. Make sure you seal the lid properly though.

 

• Decorating a plant pot and planting a seed: A classic!
• Small toy hunt with KIDS’ chopsticks: We’ve used tiny dinosaurs or plastic fish. Add some play foam for extra fun.
• Den with pillows and blankets: Snuggle up and read a story inside your den.
• Chopping vegetables with a kid-friendly knife: Cucumbers and peppers work best.
• Dance party: Play some fun kiddies music and dance like no one is watching.
• Puppet show from old socks: Do you have a kids table at home? Lay it on the side so the kids can have a stage. Or get creative with a blanket. Let them put the show on for you while you have a cuppa.
• ‘Gardening’: Designate a spot in the garden for each child and give them a few kid-friendly garden tools. Let them explore.
• Picnic in the garden. Or indoors when it’s raining: Who said lunch can only be eaten at the table?
• Baking: There are so many awesome recipes for kids online.