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Environment

30 Days Wild Day 21: Outdoor meditation on summer solstice

Outdoor meditation and kids don’t really go together but we tried this anyway to celebrate the longest day of summer.

All we did was find a peaceful outdoor spot, lie down, look at the clouds, listen to the sounds around us and take three deep breaths. I say we. I did this. My kids just wanted to run around, which was fine too.

There’s a new buzz around ‘forest bathing’, or Shinrin-yoku in Japanese, and I was interested to understand more about what it was. It’s more than just being in nature (though that alone is hugely beneficial for mental and physical wellbeing). It’s about really being present where you are, listening to the sounds, smelling the fresh forest air and concentrating on the textures and shapes that the trees make. Basically being more present in the environment you are in.

I’m sure you are supposed to do outdoor meditation for more than a few minutes, but a few minutes was all my kids allowed me to have, and it really was very nice to just lie still and look at the clouds and listen to the wind in the branches. Why am I not doing this daily?

The perfect meditative view

June 21, 2019 0 comment

Environment Nature Woodland

30 Days Wild Day 20: Wild art on the ground

After school we headed to a playground (standard) but then before we went home we had a look round the nearby woodland area for what we could find on the ground to make some wild art on day 20 of our 30 Days Wild challenge.

You can do this as big or small as you like, or do both and find big and small materials to go into each. It’s helpful to make out a shape in which to arrange all your natural bits and bobs found. Another way to do this is to think of a well-known story and tell the story using natural materials.

Making the masterpieces

We found an old piece of honeycomb

Our wild art creation

Wild art

June 21, 2019 0 comment

Environment Nature Surrey Wildlife

30 Days Wild Day 19: Exploring Whitmoor Common

Whitmoor Common is looked after by Surrey Wildlife Trust. It’s just north of Guildford. We’ve been enjoying searching out new places to explore as part of the 30 Days Wild Challenge so thought this would be a great place to come for a walk and to see what we could find.

Whitmoor Common is a really diverse area, with heathland, pine, oak, holly and hazel woodland. Further in there’s a wetter, boggy area (which reminded me of that bog in The Labyrinth) and a waterlogged channels and ponds.

There are two car parks and I think a mobile cafe comes sometimes. It’s free to use now but parking charges are to be introduced very soon in 2019. There are two self guided trails, one hour and two hours, or a number of criss-crossed trails, bridlepaths and footpaths to take. We did a bit of meandering really, with the help of google maps to navigate which way we were facing. I probably would have gotten a little lost without it, but if you stick to the trail markers you’d be fine.

The path, particularly around the heathland, is fine for buggies, though better suited to trail type or lighter ones. As you head inland into the bogs, there’s a narrow walkway, which my buggy could manage as I’ve only got a foldaway MacLaren now but would be too narrow for anything larger.

B is a pro at looking for beetles now

We started off in the heathland, looking around for beetles, bugs and butterflies. We found quite a few centipedes (I think), some very pretty clover and gorse, now in bloom. When we visited Headley Heath two weeks ago it wasn’t in flower. We also found a very large mushroom. I’m no expert and even after searching online at home I have no idea if it is poisonous or not (even though F and I have been wild food foraging).

I wanted to find one of the ponds as Whitmoor Common is a very good place to spot dragonflies. 19 species have been seen here including the emperor dragonfly. We bumbled around a bit and ended up at the train crossing, which B loved. We even got a beep and a wave from one of the trains.

Finding our way again we headed into the swampy area and to the largest pond where we sat for a while contemplating life and all that. No dragonflies unfortunately, but we did see many dogs and their friendly owners!

We also heard lots of birds. There are many nightjars here and also Dartford warblers. Using my birdspotting app I think we heard some good old blackbirds! One day I will go with a guide for sure so I can improve my birdsong listening skills.

We then began heading back towards the car park, through many muddy puddles and boggy bits, back out onto the heath. B was very pleased he had his wellies on so he could do a spot of puddle splashing.

We spent a good 2.5 hours at Whitmoor Common. Exploring new places with my children is definitely my favourite thing to do., especially when you find gems like this. I do have to bribe B a little with a promise of cafe or playground visit, but he honestly has a great time when we get to wilder places. He loves looking for minibeasts and wandering about, splashing in boggy mud and waving at other walkers. And I think now we are beginning to know a little more of what to look out for or of fun activities we could do out in nature it’s even more enjoyable.

Quick snack stop overlooking the heath

Grumpy centipede under log

B at the start of the walkway into the bog

Whitmoor Common

June 21, 2019 0 comment

Environment Nature

30 Days Wild Day 18: Nature colour art

Today on our walk back from school we looked for weeds and leaves of all different colours to do some nature colour art at home.

Green was an easy colour to find. We collected many fern and oak leaves. As was brown with all the leaf debris. We also found lots of pinks and blues form weeds growing at the sides of verges. Yellow came from dandelions and buttercups and white from cow parsley and grasses. We also found some red leaves from a weed too. I’m not sure what the weed was but it grows a lot around here!

First we sorted out our colours into piles. F wrote his name on a large piece of cardboard before tracing the outline with glue. Then we stuck on the different colours as letters before sticking it all down with sellotape. Surprisingly satisfying and I was a very smug mum on show and tell day (usually I’m the one that forgets until two minutes before we have to leave the house).

I originally was going to do a nature colour wheel with the kids, where you go out and find all the colours of the rainbow and stick it onto a circle to make a colour wheel, but thought writing F’s name would be more fun (and tick the educational box too), but a colour wheel is another good option too.

Nature colour art

June 21, 2019 0 comment

Environment Nature Woodland

30 Days Wild Day 17: Walking to school through the woods

I’ve been using the car a lot to take F to school unfortunately as it’s been raining too much. I know this is bad and I’m trying to limit how much I do this. We should be walking to school more. The school is about three quarters of a mile away from our home along quite a busy road, but there is a slightly longer route through some woods.

Now the rain seems to have stopped we’re using this route a little more as it’s so much nicer. There’s no worries about cars, no car fumes and it’s peaceful and pretty. Plus it’s so much better for us all to walk – both for physical exercise but also mental health.

I definitely feel better just after 15 minutes strolling through the woods, and how lucky am I that I have this option. I just have to work on not leaving too late 🙂

There’s many campaigns out there to get children walking to school more. Each year usually in May there is also a Walk to School Week. Living Streets estimates that a generation ago 70% of kids walked to school. Now it’s less than half.

Even after 30 Days Wild finishes I will make sure we walk to school much more. There is no reason for us not too and it’s a good opportunity for my sons to get some fresh air and exercise. I definitely get my bee in my bonnet about kids not getting enough exercise so I’d better put my money where my mouth is and get walking more!

Walking to school

June 21, 2019 0 comment

Environment Nature

30 Days Wild Day 16: Using nature to make clay art

I ordered some clay from the internet to do this at some point in June but the boys loved playing with it so much I’ve had to order two more bags of it. It’s easy to mould when you first open it but after a day or so it dries naturally and you are left with whatever shapes you’ve made.

Using nature to make clay art is such an easy activity to do. We hunted around the garden and our local patch of woodland for bits and pieces we found. It could be anything but harder objects like shells or seed pods work very well. Roll out the clay to about half a cm thick then press your bit of leaf, acorn, seed etc down firmly into the clay. Voila! You are left with a lovely imprint.

I actually think if you spent a bit more time making the initial shape neat and tidy, and then painted or varnished the bit of clay afterwards, it would make a nice present for grandparents.

Our nature finds – an oak leaf, fern and seeds from a flower

Rolling out our clay

Pretty fern print on clay

Using nature to make clay art

June 21, 2019 2 comments

Environment Nature Wildlife

30 Days Wild Day 15: Making an insect house

My mum bought the boys a ‘make your own insect house’ so we made it. You can make your own DIY insect house too but this was much easier for us. It’s a great present idea too.

The kit comes with everything you need including the pieces of wood and bamboo sticks, glue plus tow ladybirds to stick on the top. All you need to do is glue it all together, find some grasses and old leaves to stuff into the house before adding the bamboo sticks.

This is a complete five-star luxury pad for insects. They be happy under an old log or in a pile of leaves too, as we’ve been finding on our little adventures here there and everywhere for the 30 Days Wild Challenge, but it was nice to do something crafty with the boys and they loved making a little home for the bugs.

The insect house we got from The National Trust

Insect house

June 21, 2019 1 comment

Environment Nature Wildlife

What we did on the 30 Days Wild Challenge: week 2

What a rainy week it has been. I won’t lie, it’s been harder to find the motivation sometimes to get outdoors and into nature with the kids, but I’ve learnt from week 2 of the Wildlife Trust’s #30dayswild challenge that you really don’t need to do anything major or organise anything crazy, just a wander around the garden or a splash in some puddles for five minutes is enough to raise the mood, get some fresh air and feel a bit more connected with the outside world. Rain or shine 🙂

This week we did a mixture of things – some at home, some out and about, and we enjoyed nature that was very, very big (trees) and nature that was very, very small (bees and bugs).

Gardening with kids

After the success of planting our wildflower seeds that came with our #30DaysWild pack, we went to the garden centre to buy some more bee-friendly plants and seeds, and had a marathon plantathon in our patio. The beauty of this activity is you are helping wildlife as well as getting kids into the outdoors and enjoying learning about nature. Find out what bee-friendly flowers we planted in the link above.

A visit to the British Wildlife Centre

The British Wildlife Centre is close to me but we’d never been so this was a good opportunity to visit to see what it was all about. Verdict? A great day out for all the family. If you want to earn a ‘good parent’ badge, this is a good place to go as it’s educational as well as being really good fun for all ages. We saw British Wildlife you generally never get to see out in the wild like otters and badgers. The red squirrels were feeling a bit shy when we visited but the foxes and owls were quite happy to be seen out and about.

Eggbox scavenger hunt in Staffhurst Woods

Defying the rain we headed under the canopy to the Surrey Wildlife Trust’s Staffhurst Woods. This is a lovely spot for a walk. In summer (or when it’s dry anyway) there trail walk is even suitable for pushchairs. We didn’t walk too far as our eyes were kept peeled to the ground for beetles, bugs and butterflies.

Exploring a local street tree

The Wildlife Trusts have some good activity sheets to print out and follow with kids. Great if you are feeling a bit uninspired. We took our little legs to explore our local street tree. We climbed it, examined it, hugged it and drew it. Then used all our clues to work out just exactly what tree it was.

Reading nature books outdoors

So simple, so why have I never read to my kids outdoors? It makes such a routine task much more enjoyable. I could have sat out all day reading with my son. Bonus was we actually had some sunny weather too – hooray! Find out what nature books we read in the link above.

Going on a minibeast hunt

Another woodland trip. What is it about kids and their obsession with bugs and beetles? We had great fun turning over logs and tree stumps and rifling through piles of wet leaves looking for critters. Taking some spotting sheets from The Wildlife Trusts turned this game into something a bit more interesting too as we got to put names to faces. Hello bloody nosed beetle.

Making a bee watering station

We went full circle and back to making our garden patch more wildlife-friendly with a homemade bee watering station. Find out how easy it is to make, and what you definitely should not do in the blog post link above!

Onto week 3!

30 days wild week 2

June 16, 2019 3 comments

Environment Nature Wildlife

30 Days Wild Day 14: Making a bee watering station

Making a bee watering station is another really cool (and speedy) after school activity to get kids outdoors and exploring nature.

Bees are having a hard time at the moment, and this is very bad news as bees pollinate the food we eat. We need bees to survive. but 1 in 10 species of bee faces extinction, and over the past 50 years over half of all species has declined. Climate change, biodiversity loss, fragmentation of land and the use of pesticides are all contributing to the problem.

So how amazing is it that we can contribute DIRECTLY to change this decline in species. This really resonated with me, and I hope it did with my kids too (the older one anyway). Sometimes I feel so powerless to change anything. All the big problems seem so vast that I don’t know where to begin or how to act, but just making some simple changes in your back garden or patio can be the start of some huge changes.

There are various ways of making a bee watering station but we used a shallow dish, some stones from around the garden of different shapes and sizes, and some water. You could also use marbles. The key is for the water in the container to be shallow, so that bees, and other insects, will not drown in it. The water will need refreshing every so often to keep it clean, fresh and free from mosquitoes.

Many sites tell you to add sugar but it appears to be a myth. It seems to have come from a fake tweet from Sir David Attenborough, which has now been deleted. Bees do not need to be given any added sugar. It’s not a natural food source for them. They need nectar and pollen, so the best thing to do if you want to really help bees thrive is to plant lots of flowers that are bee friendly. You can also make a bee hotel with kids. Hopefully we will have a go at making a bee hotel on our 30 Days Wild challenge too.

My son loved this activity. Rummaging around the garden for stones, arranging them in the dish and watering the dish. The station sits outside a window and he keeps asking me where all the bees and butterflies are. I’m telling him that the rainy weather is probably more than enough water for the bees and the butterflies for now but they might like the water station if it gets really hot later in summer.

B arranging his stones and pebbles in the dish

Bee watering station

June 16, 2019 0 comment

Environment Nature Woodland

30 Days Wild Day 13: Going on a woodland minibeast hunt

B and I headed back to Staffhurst Woods to look for bugs and beetles on a minibeast hunt. He had been given a minibeast hunt set for his birthday, so we took that with us. The set had a magnifying glass, pot with airholes and a magnifying glass lid and helpful book in it, but I also printed out some of these spotting sheets from the Wildlife Trust too:-

Nut detective spotting sheet

Minibeast detective spotting sheet

Beetle detective spotting sheet

Summer woodland wildlife spotting sheet

Woodland butterfly spotting sheet

There are tons of different sheet available on the website for all different seasons and places to visit.

We first looked for fallen logs and branches, as the obvious place to find minibeasts. Under one log we found a huge beetle. Going by the beetle detective spotting sheet, this might be a bloody-nosed beetle, though I’m not sure.

We found many woodlice under leaves and branches, some tiny, flying insects and something which looked like a mini butterfly with long tentacles plus a big slug, which B wanted to take home to show his brother! 🙂 B also found some half eaten nuts. I think they were beech nut shells and also old acorns.

Unfortunately we were beaten by the rain again so headed home before we really wanted to. We’ll take the pot and spotting sheets to another place soon in June, hopefully when the weather is better, to see what else we can find.

Minibeast hunt, beetle in a minibeast pot

The beetle we found under a log

B finds some tiny insects

Minibeast hunt

June 16, 2019 0 comment

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