Tag Archives: Nature

An Autumn of Fun for Free in your Local Area

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Autumn is such a beautiful time of the year, and it should be enjoyed by people of all ages and of all abilities too. But as the cost of living goes up again with our need for heating on and more food, not to mention the loom of Christmas… most people will vote to stay in, worrying they cannot afford to go out.

Well I’m in the same boat as all of you again this season, knowing that money will be tight but I also want to make the most of weekends I have my son. School takes up so many hours of the week, and the majority of children don’t really want to be stuck inside (unless the weather is gale force and torrential rain!). So it’s important to come up with some cheap ideas that will suit everyone and that can be fun of course, so here’s what I do.

See what can you do for free in your local area. Where do you begin to look?

Start off by writing down on a piece of paper the people in your household, their ages and abilities.

Do you need toilets frequently, baby changing facilities or access for a pram or wheelchair?

Once you have established the type of place you need to find you can look up on an online map what is available for free in your area.

Check local free magazines in supermarkets, check out social media by searching in events local to you by so many miles radius.

Some of these things can include;

Public Footpaths.
Canal Routes or Designated Walkways.
Parks and Gardens.
Local Heritage Sites.
Castles or Stately Homes.
Farms with Free Entry to look at Pumpkins, Flowers or do Maize Mazes.
Nature Reserves with free car parking so you can do a Nature Walk to collect leaves.
National Trust (some people will already be members, sometimes they have reduced entry fees).

What Can You Do While Out?

Enjoy a walk together as a family, don’t forget to take some photograph’s!
Gather items to take home and make art and craft pieces another day.
Go for a Nature Walk and talk about what you can see and hear (great for young children).
Nature Bingo where you make a list before you go and then tick off the items as you find them.
Discuss the life cycle of trees with older children and the importance of renewal each year.

(If you don’t mind spending a little money)
Pumpkin Patch Picking
Maize Maze or Woodland Trails
Local Trust Properties or Heritage Sites

Sabrina’s Top Tip: Take a picnic or packed lunch with you, and drinks for everyone too which will save you money, even if you have to eat it in the car then it won’t matter because it’s still family time.

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Thank you for reading this blog post today, I do hope that I have given you some good ideas.

Have a great day and lots of fun if you take on board any of my tips!

✩ Sabrina ✩

Earth Day 2022 April 22nd Why Not Do Something Good

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Earth. Our Home Planet.

Here are some interesting Earth facts to celebrate Earth Day!

Earth is the third planet from our sun.

It is the only known planet in our system to be known to harbour life.

Earth is made up of 71% Oceans and we still haven’t fully explored all of them.

Earths main 3 elements found on Earth are Oxygen, Iron and Silicone.

Earth has a powerful magnetic field.

Planet Earth is billions of years old – Wow! Get your head around that!

Making little changes can make a BIG difference to our world.

Here are some things you can do on Earth day and also from now on too, to make little changes in your life that can affect the planet in a positive way…

Give up single use plastics such as cling film and find somewhere to recycle those plastics – do not add them to your normal refuse or they end up in landfill.

Do a Beach Clean Up – if you visit the Beach or are able to – take a plastic bag with you.

Plant a Tree on your land or find an arboretum that allows you to plant one on their land in memory of a loved one.

Go Meat and Dairy Free for at least one day a week to reduce your carbon footprint.

Make a Bug Hotel for your Garden, hang it somewhere appropriate and check it regularly.

Only use Recyclable or Reusable Bags at the Supermarket.

Shop Locally when you can do to support local business.

Walk somewhere and walk regularly, fresh air is great for your mental health.

Use your car less when possible, could you carpool or walk?

Go on a Nature Scavenger Hunt with your Family and look for endangered species.

Pick up Litter around where you live, it doesn’t matter how much you collect, every bit helps.

Do lots of Recycling at Home and be mindful of doing what you can to reduce your waste.

Feed the Birds today or buy a bird feeder for your Garden to help regularly.

Make a Bee corner or Bee friendly flower pot in your Garden or on your windowsill.

Thank you for reading this blog post today, I hope that I have inspired you to do something for our Planet this Earth Day! Have a wonderful day!

✩ Sabrina ✩

Fun Ways to Spend Quality Time with your Children both Indoors and Outdoors this Easter

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Sometimes we are all guilty of spending too much time on technology, and now that the weather is improving we should all be putting down our TV remotes and phones and getting outside! (I know that you’re thinking about doing that now, as you read this blog post on a piece of tech, but please bare with me as I have some great activities you’ll want to be inspired by I’m sure!)

So where to begin! If you’re not naturally adventurous for the great outdoors it can seem a bit overwhelming! So how about we just start small! I have come up with a range of things to suit everyone, outdoorsy types and not so much! All you need to do is choose one of these to do each day during the school break or even at the Easter weekend and voila you have some outdoor fun, nature related or outdoor activity to enjoy!

Here are my 15 “Things We Can Do” of Fun Ideas to do Indoors and Outdoors… Weather Dependent!

🥚 Use Nature in a Painting – Use sticks or leaves to paint with!

🥚 Spot a Bird of Prey – Look up and see what is flying above your head!

🥚 Find Some Minibeasts and Draw Them from Memory – Bugs can be colourful and interesting!

🥚 Take a Walk in 4 Different Types of Weather – No matter what the weather it can be fun to take a walk!

🥚 Go For a Walk and Find Some Puddles to Jump in – Who doesn’t like jumping in a puddle! Wear wellies!

🥚 Have a Musical Morning, Listening or Playing – Music can help you relax!

🥚 Do Some Finger Painting – Draw the trunk of a tree and make the leaves with your fingers!

🥚 Play Eye-Spy on a Family Walk – Eye Spy is great for a range of ages!

🥚 Do a Jigsaw on a Rainy Day – Jigsaws can be a fun family activity on a rainy day or a board game!

🥚 Build a Den or Fort Together – Who doesn’t love building a den! Cushions and Throws work well!

🥚 Draw and then Colour in something you’ve seen in Nature on your Walk, a Rainbow, Tree, Flower etc

🥚 Design your own Dream Car or Dream House (for older children to imagine)

🥚 Create Post for a Loved One and Walk to a Post Box to Send it – Draw a Picture or Write a Letter

🥚 Have an Afternoon of MESS with Messy Play or Fun with Paint or Food items – Paint and Rice Crispies…

🥚 Read More! Read as a Family, decide on what your Favourite Book is and why – Books help you learn!

🥚 Nature Hunter Gatherers – Collect some things from in your local area to look at when you get home such as leaves and pinecones, things that have fallen from trees and bushes. Don’t deliberately destroy nature though! Fallen Leaves are great, discover what tree they come from by looking at the shape!

The image above is from when my son and I did a day of Nature Hunter Gatherers. It was a lovely warm day and we spent six hours outside having fun, games and walking. This activity is great for learning about where things come from such as pinecones and feathers. Make sure you do this on a dry day. We took a long walk through our village and picked up things that we found on the ground. Leave them somewhere cool and dry for a few days to dry out and make sure there are no creatures living in them before you handle them again!

I highly recommend getting some coloured trays like these, they were only £3 for a pack of 3 from
The Works. Perfect for both Art and Craft and collecting things too!

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Picking Up Litter

If your children are a little older than mine you might want to pop gloves on when you go on your walk, take a plastic bag with you, and do a litter picking up hour in your local village or town. This helps the environment and the animals and birds in your area from getting injured.

🥚 Easter Ideas 🥚

You could also do Easter themed Drawings, Colouring In and Games such as an Easter Egg Hunt in your house or garden this weekend.

Check out my previous Easter blog posts for Art and Craft ideas and Baking fun… Here…

Thank you for reading this blog post today! I hope that I have inspired you to do at least one of these activities with your own family. Let me know in the comments section or on my social media if you get up to anything fun in the next few weeks!

✩ Sabrina ✩

Introducing Children to Nature with Fun and Games

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There are many ways to introduce toddlers and young children to nature. No matter where you live there will always be something to see. So here are my top tips on how you can start showing off the nature where you live, to your children. It’s never too early to start learning!

And I am sure that David Attenborough would agree with me when I say that “You’re never too young or too old to learn about the world around you”.

By making things fun children are more likely to learn and remember the information you are portraying. You can still stay safe at home but enjoy nature around where you live by keeping to social distancing guidelines.

Here are my Top 5 things to do at Home but Outside! Be it in your Garden or if you don’t have one you could just go on a Walk around your village or town or park. It may be lockdown but that doesn’t stop you walking socially distanced from other families.

Children are more likely to learn and listen if you turn things into fun and a game. So why not make your own games up, or take a look at my ideas below.

1. Bird Spotting
2. Bug Finding
3. Pick a Creature – Try To Find It
4. What Is That I See? What Is Around My Home
5. Eye Spy Lockdown Edition

1. Bird Spotting is easy enough to do, take a notepad and pen with you and write everyone’s names at the top. Make columns down the page and write down every different sort of bird that you spot. The person who spots the most species of birds is the winner!

2. Bug Finding is great fun in a small space, depending on how old your children are you could just spot basic bugs and say things like “Beetle” or “Spider” or you can go into what type of bug you are looking at such as “Stag Beetle” etc. You could even ask little ones to draw what they saw on the walk from their memory when you get back home.

3. Pick a Creature is a great game to play with children who already know what certain animals are. Take a walk and get everyone to pick something, one person might count Crows, the other Cats, another Pigeons, but whatever it is they have to keep score of their creature until you get home.

4. What is that I see? Use your knowledge of things around where you live and discuss things with your children like the seasons, if there are evergreen trees, what colour the flowers are you can find, any buildings and their purpose etc.

5. Eye Spy Lockdown Edition is literally eye spy but your children are only allowed to pick one type of thing during your walk. You could say just birds, or just objects, whatever is best for your children’s age.

Books I Recommend

I recently invested in several books for my son who is two and a half. He is interested in matching things up lately so I thought books with pictures of things to spot when we go out for a walk are ideal. I also have a number of nature books I have collected over my lifetime, anything with large pictures and easy to see nature depicting scenes are engaging for most children.

“Usborne Minis” are Great little books ideal to carry with you on a walk, and they have a range so you could pick which is most relevant to you and where you live, for example Birds, Trees or Bugs. There are always National Trust books and also RSPB for birds. Another great book I own is the DK Pocket Nature Wildlife of Britain book, it’s a few years old now but has excellent photography and information about British wildlife.

Of course you can always use a search engine on your phone to find out what you’ve seen, but the joy of these sorts of books is being able to mark things off when you have spotted them. The Usborne Mini book set have stickers for you to place on a grid inside the book in order to tick them off. This is great because you also have to identify the sticker as well as the creature or tree for example. Simple but it’s still learning at its best.

Thank you for reading this post today, I hope I have inspired you to get out and about in your area with your children (or just your other half). I have many more lockdown friendly ideas coming up over the next few weeks, so please check back another time if you enjoyed this post.

Have a lovely week!

✩ Sabrina ✩