NOW CLOSED: Win a Nature Art book and get your grandkids in the garden

My Grandchildren love spending time outdoors.
We go to the woods and see who is first to spot a squirrel. Another favourite activity is standing on a bridge throwing a stick in and watching it come out the other side.

For older children, do a project. My granddaughter aged 10 and her brother aged 7 discovered newts in my pond and spent days doing a project, which included a fact file, drawings and stories. Some was done on the computer, (finding out information) some by hand. This is part of her story -

One sunny day, I was swimming around this nice pond I discovered a few years back, when suddenly a huge thing came swooping at us from above the water. Luckily we managed to swim out of reach just before it caught us; however it soon came crashing back into the water. It engulfed us in a spiky green thing, and then hauled us up, out of the water and into an unknown world.
Straight away, I nearly fell right back into the water, annoyingly though they flicked the green thing around, consequently I sadly didn’t. Thankfully my fellow friend newton also got caught so at lest we were in this together. Even so I was even more worried about my eggs, you see I’ve been pregnant for a couple months now and I’m getting quite close to laying them. Anyway, it was pretty rude really, I mean just snatching us out of are home with a big green thing like that, just plain rude.
The only good thing was that they put us in a sort of pleasant bowl although it was extremely dull, I mean just white all the way around. The OK thing about it was that there was a bit of are food in there with us. The next thing that happened was rather strange, if you ask me. They all just gazed at us like we were some kind of amazing, exotic thing. Next a weird flashy thing pointed at us and flashed, ( a camera.) Luckily after a while they got bored and set us free.

Whoops!!! How did that happen!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

Children are totally fascinated by nature, wildlife and insects. It is our duty to nurture that fascination as it will teach them so many skills and provide them with useful information for the future! My grandchildren recently found an abandoned kitten of about 8 days - they have hand reared it waking up through the night to feed it. It is growing rapidly and thriving. Their compassion for this small creature has amazed me. Beats the heck out of the TV!

I love making 'tray gardens' with the little ones.
You use an old baking tray, biscuit lid, whatever as the garden base ...... never deep as this does imply mess !!!
Then they make their gardens, a bit of blue paper for pond or river, pebbles/ small rocks, small quantity of soil or compost, flower heads, grass cuttings and so on. Often mine add their own spiders, beetles, bugs and even the odd dinosaur!!!!!!! wonderful for making up stories.

At the same time, you could plant some fast growing plants like 'cress' on a plate for the window cill, as they do not do long term plans at an early age.

It is not designed to be kept or grown from, but after this they can progress to
'henbane's ' ideas. As it is temporary it is ideal for Nana's house.

We play name that tree / plant / bird - even if just walking through town