I hope you have had an enjoyable Bank Holiday Weekend and that some of you were able to watch the sun set. This week I have lots more fun activities to help you connect with nature. One of these is the make a nature table. At forest school, we are often finding very interesting objects on the marsh and we have quite a collection! Due to that fact that the collection was started when we found a sheep skeleton, our nature table is called ‘The Shelf of Death’. We have a large range of found natural objects and thankfully not all of them are from dead creatures!
Out and About – Find a Smell Walk
This is a unique activity game focusing on smell. Walkers take turns to pick a ‘Smell Card’ out of the bag or coat pocket and seek out different smells. Discover a whole new world of smells!
You will need:
5 small pieces of card (back of a cereal box)
Pen
Scissors
A coat with a pocket or a small bag
How to make it:
Cut the card into 5 pieces.
Write one name of each smell category onto each piece of card – Mouldy, Sweet, Fresh, Wow, Yuck.
You can add your own smell categories and more cards.
In the Garden – Duck and Fox
This is a stalking game based on the traditional game ‘Grandmother’s Footsteps’. You will need a blindfold and an ‘egg’ (pine cone, pebble, ball). The duck is blindfolded and stands at one end of the garden with their ‘egg’ by their feet and the other players are the foxes. The object of the game is for the foxes to try to stalk the duck and stealthily steal the egg from the duck without being heard. If the duck hears the fox and points correctly to where the fox is stalking, the fox is has to return to the start and try again. When the fox successfully seizes the egg they swap places and they become the duck.
Staying at home – Make a Nature Table
Nature Tables are an ideal way to celebrate the incredible variety of nature that surrounds us, wherever we live. It is a place where you can make a collection of all the interesting natural objects you find when you are out and about on your exercise walk. It certainly doesn’t need to be a table but a nature shelf or windowsill works equally well.
Things you might collect for your nature table could include: anything that falls off a tree: pine cones, leaves, seeds, berries, fruit, bark and twigs. It could be an unusually shaped or coloured stone, feathers or shells. Anything at all that isn’t living or attached to a living plant or tree could be added to your nature table so long as it interests you.
You could add identification labels and information to identify the objects and where you found them. It will be a lovely record of some your nature connection during lockdown so why not start one yourself today?