Friday 18 January 2013

Nature play


I have always been a big believer that a fantastic childhood is made up of imagination, make believe, getting outside and getting dirty. Thinking back to my childhood the things I remember doing and having fun with was playing outside - talking to our ducks and chickens, riding my bike, playing Barbie Dolls and creating clothes for them with scrap material.

I doubt many people would remember back and only think of that time they sat in front of the telly.... or playing that computer game..... I mean, sure we have some of those memories, but the best ones are the ones that we created ourselves.

Now dont get me wrong - we have a TV and we watch it. But over the school holidays with the tempation of TV, Ipad and Mobile phones (we don't own gaming consoles) I want to make a real effort for us to be involved in Nature Play.

At the beging of the holidays we wrote a list together of all the low cost activities we would like to do. These included - visiting friends, the beach, the park, sleep overs, movie days, cooking......

Then whilst visiting a friend she told me about this cool little "passport". It has been produced by the Department of Sport and Recreation. ( You can find more details here: www.natureplaywa.org.au )

 

The whole idea of this passport is to get your kids out and about in nature, to start exploring, use science and create things.

So far my kids have LOVED it. I have printed out each "mission" and we are working our way through it. Even a visit to Grandma and Pop-pops house helped to complete a mission. Together they went for a scavenger hunt on the foreshore. These are some of the treasures they found
And this morning before it started to heat up too much we went for a walk to the park. We did a bit of bird spotting and duck feeding!

We also have flowers from our garden in our "flower press" ( made of telephone books). This brought back memories for me as I use to do that all the time, and we have some grass heads growing on the window sill.
So much fun with nature!! What shall we do next?

3 comments:

  1. I am nominating you for Very Inspiring Blogger and The Versatile Blogger awards. Great blog. Congratulations! More info and rules are here
    http://catseatdogs.com/2013/01/17/oh-i-say/

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    Replies
    1. Aww Thanks @catseatdogs. I will definately love to be a part of this! I will be onto it soon!

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  2. Yes Jooles they are great memories - and the best part is that all those fun memories are coming flooding back with each of the little tasks we are completing!!

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