TOP TIPS FOR AUTUMN
WITH YOUR KIDS IN THE GARDEN
We can have good weather in the UK in the autumn. So if there is still warmth in the air and its dry take advantage and spend some time with your children in your garden. Offer them a variety of activities to keep their interest in outdoor play.
Leaves from trees can provide endless opportunities for jumping and rolling in and, of course, throwing. The children will love help raking fallen leaves into large piles. Transport them into any large container. My son loves to bury his small toys in his play sand table filled with leaves. It then becomes easy to create dinosaur land or a fairy grotto.
Make full use of autumn's orange, red and bronze colour palette. Pick up a colour paint chart from your local DIY store. You can try one with a variety of colours or those with different tones of autumnal colour. Then ask the children to match the colours on the chart to those found on plants and other items within the garden.
You can have a go at a nature scavenger hunt by listing things that you know can be found in your garden in autumn and asking the children to find them. Perhaps seed heads, coloured leaves, conkers or acorns with their hats on.
Whilst they are playing don't forget there are a few garden jobs for you to do. Autumn is one of the best times to plant shrubs. You will also find the garden centres full of spring flowering bulbs ready to plant immediately. Be careful though as most bulbs are poisonous planting with the young children is not an option. If you want to plant a willow tunnel or willow teepee order your willow for planting early in 2010.
When it begins to turn a bit chilly make full use of running around games, hopscotch, sack and egg and spoon races.
If you haven't been feeding the birds through the summer now is the time to start. The birds will then become used to having food in the same place everyday.
As the evenings start to draw in older children and those who do not go to bed early have the opportunity to see the garden at dusk. Wrap them up and let them have a torch so they can explore the shadows and sounds of a night time garden. Go on a torchlight safari for moths and other nighttime insects. Buddleia, Honeysuckle and other night-scented plants are a good place to start.
Using your garden in the autumn will provide your children with childhood memories of autumn of crisp, scrunching leaves and a garden of fading blooms and plants and trees going to sleep. They will start to understand that the outdoors is not just for hot summer’s days and that there is plenty of fun to be had in the garden at other times of the year.
