During the Easter period, I will be setting a few Nature Connections challenges. These can be done on your own or as a family. After the Easter break the daily posts will resume as normal.
I am really enjoying sharing activity ideas and writing the Nature Connection blog each day and hope it has been interesting and inspiring.
Please do email any photos of the nature challenges you have taken part in over the Easter period. I’d love to hear from you. Please check no photos have images of people in them – wild nature only!
Challenge 1 – Gratitude stone
At forest school we always end our sessions with a ‘Gratitude Circle’. It is a time for reflection and where we are all invited to share something we are grateful for that day. It always leaves such a positive energy amongst us and so challenge 1 is to spread some of that positivity.
Find a smooth stone or pebble – if you are walking near the beach this week it is an ideal opportunity to search and collect one pebble and bring it home. Using paint, felt tips or crayons decorate one side of your gratitude pebble with a picture. On the other side write a gratitude, one thing you are grateful for, no matter how big or small (pencil works well on pebbles).
You can then hide your pebble around the house, garden or leave it out and about on your exercise walk for someone else to find.
Challenge 2 – Wild Rainbow Hunt
Inspired by all the wonderful spring flowers around at the moment, I thought it would be nice to embrace the rainbow theme. Why not try and find a wild plant or flower for each of the colours of the rainbow? You could try to find one colour for each day over the next 7 days or challenge your family to find an entire rainbow on your exercise walk. Here’s one I did yesterday.
Challenge 3 – Stick Towers
When you are out and about on your exercise walk, collect as many sticks of different sizes as you can carry (take a shopping bag with you) and bring them home. The challenge is to build the tallest free-standing tower using only sticks and string. This can be done individually or as a team. It could have a timed element or not.
If you are indoors, this could easily be done using BBQ skewers, chop sticks, pencils (or anything similar you can find) and string or wool. You could use blue tac, plasticine instead of string for younger ones.