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

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!

Whoops!!! How did that happen!

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.

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.

My 3 year old granddaughter loves to be outside and is fascinated by every insect or creature she meets! today she was excited to show granny the toad she had found behind the shed, and the hungry caterpillar on a leaf!

Just yesterday I dug a previously unused border for DGD to plant, she helped with the weeding (sort of), she raked with her own rake and we planted some primulas and some poppy seeds, hopefully the primulas will be fairly tough so if she stands on them or pulls leaves out they will still be ok, the poppys too should be robust. I have lots of plants in my garden that need thinning out so I will take them to her house and fill another border (parents don't like gardening) .
Last week she asked me to grow vegetables and Im thinking which would be quickest, Ive decided to help het to plant radishes and Ive got some potatoes ready chitted to plant along the border, I think its best to plant something she can eat and share with the family.
I left her last night with the instructions to take her little watering can every night unless raining to water her seeds and plants, she has already almost flooded the seed bed LOL. We shall wait and see what happens.

My DGS doesn't need any encouraging to go outside but loves obstacle races when he gets there.

My son always come outside when im gardening and wants to get involved, so i think yes he would love to receive a book like this x

Young children see detail rather than the whole picture - the ladybird rather than the panorama for example - so pointing out just one small feature and challenging them to look for more often focuses their attention nicely on the wonderful world of nature. Looking for patterns, colours or shapes can be great fun.

Our 3 year old Grandson is a real outdoor person, digging and watering is his thing even in the winter !! We have a special mound of earth and some pots which he fills, when his gone we empty the pots back on to the mound so when he comes again its already to dig again. This year we have started to teach him about flowers and weeds and all the various insects we have found.

Oh outdoors to me and my grandchild means the garden. You need fast growing plants, such as radishes which can be easily sown and grow quick. Also sunflowers (started off indoors, by me) can be planted as little plants and grow very tall for a little one. But I find the best and she still cant wait, each year is to plant sweetcorn. For some reason they are the amazing food that she sees grow and harvest and eat before her eyes. Also is a great pick-a-upper when it comes to weeding etc. She loves putting all the garden rubbish in the sack and those 'litter picker' tools come in useful as its fun for her to use. All these activities as made her not frightened of all the bugs you come across including wasps etc.

My grandkids love every year when we get the sunflower seeds out and plant them. then every time they come round we monitor their progress! its great fun when they are growing and exciting when whey visit

We have always gone for family walks in the countryside, and mine and hubby's natural appreciation of nature seems to have rubbed off on the kids

My grandson has just spent a week with daddy helping (hindering?) daddy in the garden and everything is a bee. My granddaughters on the other hand spend every moment they can in their garden and are becoming quite knowledgeable. So grateful to be near them all so we get to enjoy it too!

We go on nature hunts picking up bits to make arty pieces and also visiting historic sites making up stories to what it was like

I remember loving a book from my childhood called "Collect, Print and Paint From Nature" so I was excited to find an old copy in a second hand bookshop recently and I am re-visiting the activities with my grandchildren.

Bug safaris with a torch and magnifying glass - heaps of fun!

my boys are seemingly obsessed with worms and labybirds!

As Grand-Dad enjoys his garden, but unable to do the work in the garden now :- He has chats with the children whilst Uncles allow the youngsters to help them to weed, re-pot etc. Children are fascinated by the Great OutDoors, and they do so like to help us adults. As the youngsters have a herb garden, which was there when the family moved to the property. They have become used to the garden, growing some plants etc.

Sharing, Supervising and allowing some appropriate participation seems to be a good way to allow youngsters to learn and appreciate the OutDoors, Nature.

my daughter loved her own mini gardening tools, and her own little patch to look after, and we still love painting garden stones with mini beasts x

My small granddaughter digs for worms while I weed and will remove snails by taking from the garden and putting in field next to us.

we love going adventures on the way to the park, throw sticks into the stream and see who's the winner.