Category:

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 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 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

Environment Nature Wildlife Woodland

30 Days Wild Day 11: Studying a local street tree

In between the rainfall, we went outside to take a proper look at one of our local street tree. We have three oak trees in our garden but we also have an outdoor green near our house with a few big trees on it, so we headed there to take a closer look at a local street tree.

I got the idea from a worksheet which you can download from The Wildlife Trusts Wildlife Watch website – My Street Tree. There’s lots more wildlife activities on the Wildlife Watch website too if you want to try something else.

First F wanted to climb the tree, so I helped him up into the lower branches. I don’t think many kids climb trees now which is a real shame. I understand that it is risky but then so is a climbing frame in a playground? Some of my favourite childhood memories involve clilmbing three trees of varying difficulty in my local park. It felt like another world and each tree had it’s own quirks and challenges and felt different to the other.

Our local street tree canopy

F climbs our tree and B investigates the trunk!

Then we had a little look around the tree to see if we could find any creatures. We found a woodlouse on the bark, some fungi around the roots and could hear some birds high up in the branches. We were also on the hunt for worms as it’s been raining, but we could not find any. Where have they gone?!

Then we went back home and drew our local street tree, coloured it in and sellotaped a fallen leaf next to it. We looked up what tree it was using The Woodland Trust’s Tree ID app, and thought it was probably a Red Oak tree.

Other things you can do are measure the tree’s trunk and estimate its height, do some bark rubbing, and water the tree (I don’t think we really needed to do this last one on this occasion!).

This was a really fun and quick outdoor activity. It doesn’t take any effort at all to do it, and is a good after school activity when you are short of time but want to get your kids outdoors for a bit. My older son, who is five, particularly loved it and wants to do it again with another tree. B, the toddler, was admittedly more interested in poking about in the mud at the bottom of the tree but that was fine with me too!

Local street tree, boys drawing and colouring

Busy colouring in our tree

F’s street tree drawing with leaf and acorn

Local street tree

June 16, 2019 0 comment

Environment Nature Uncategorized Woodland

30 Days Wild day 10: Going on a eggbox scavenger hunt

We wrapped up as warmly as we could and headed out to Staffhurst Woods, one of Surrey Wildlife Trust’s loveliest reserves, for an eggbox scavenger hunt. If you come earlier in April and May, you’ll witness a carpet of bluebells. We try to come every year as it’s a truly beautiful place in Spring for a picnic. It’s also lovely any time of year, even this damp and gloomy day in June!

Where’s summery June gone? We’re struggling a bit in this damp weather. That said, I’m in the middle of reading Simon Barnes’ brilliant book ‘Rewild Yourself’ and one of the chapters talks about ‘magic trousers’. Basically, if you arm yourself with a pair of waterproof trousers as well as a rain jacket, you’re set to get out there into the UK’s predictable weather. Such a simple tip but so true. My kids have got waterproof trousers, but I haven’t so I’ve ordered a pair in case this downpour continues on throughout June.

B painted an eggbox before we came (outdoors!). We let it dry before sticking on some ideas for what to look for on our eggbox scavenger hunt. There are tons of ideas out there for scavenger hunts depending on the time of year and environment you are in, but today we went for a woodland-inspired scavenger hunt collection from The Woodland Trust.

Then we hunted around for bits and pieces in Staffhurst Woods, before having a quick snack on our picnic rug. We looked for:-

Something yellow (couldn’t find much but found a yellowy/green leaf)

A nibbled leaf (bramble leaf)

Something bendy (leftove of a bluebell stalk)

Something weighless (fern leaf)

Something rough (bark, complete with woodlice)

Something delicate (moss)

B enjoyed poking around close to the ground but also just clambering over fallen logs and jumping about being silly. Must be something about the fresh woodland air! The heavens opened before lunch so we admitted defeat and headed home and back to buy those waterproof trousers.

Eggbox scavenger hunt, toddler on fallen log in woods

Enjoying the woods’ natural playground

B looks for items to go in his eggbox

Eggbox scavenger hunt

June 13, 2019 0 comment

Activity Adventure Environment Explore Parks Surrey UK Walking Woodland

30 Days Wild Day 5: Exploring Headley Heath in Surrey

I have two days off work to spend time with my littlest, so we decided to try somewhere new. We drove over to Headley Heath, partly in search of butterflies, but also to just have an enjoyable walk around somewhere we’d not been to before.

Headley Heath in the North Downs region and is about 300 hectares large. It’s obviously heathland (which I love) but also there’s pockets of woodland and dry chalk grassland, plus a good viewpoint out over the Downs from one point, so very interesting to visit. There’s lots of wildlife to look out for here including butterflies, birds, insects and lizards.

The info leaflet that I picked up told me that ‘lowland heath is one of the most endangered habitats in the world, even rarer than the rainforest’, which amazed me. And how fortunate we are to live so close to this site.

Headley Heath has a useful 3km ‘lizard trail’ that is suitable for families. I’d say it’s also fine for buggies in the summer months too. It’s quite undulating in parts but definitely doable. There’s two car parks which are free for National Trust members. No cafe or facilities so bring a picnic and cross your legs.

We head off in the direction of the Belted Galloway cattle which graze on the heathland. Apparently they have a vital role in maintaining the heathland habitats. (We visited the Romney Marsh earlier in May and the sheep which are farmed down there are also vital in maintaining the landscapes and rare flora and fauna down there too).

B loved watching the cows. They are an easy win for children as easy to spot! I didn’t want to get too close though.

Having fun in our nature playground

Then we wandered through the Heath, keeping the orange trail markers in our site, though as the site is fairly small it doesn’t really matter if you veer off onto a different path, it’s tricky to get lost here.

B did better than me and found a colony (?) of ants looking busy going in and out of a small hole, plus a bright purple/red butterfly – possibly a peacock butterfly. We also both spotted a white butterfly, which I think is the most common here – the cabbage white. We’ll try butterfly spotting again soon, but here’s a useful guide to butterfly types.

We also saw a foxglove, which are common here in summer and attract the bees plus lots of gorse, and these pretty white flowers (my knowledge of flowers is quite poor I’m finding!) which were also attracting the bees.

Ants busy making a home

Headley Heath, foxglove at Headley Heath

Foxglove at Headley Heath, a food supply for bees

Headley Heath, bee on flower

We stopped at Brimmer Pond for a rest, to look out for newts and dragonflies (didn’t see any) and to listen for birds. I think we partly had trouble as my toddler is RATHER LOUD. If you take a listen to the short video you’ll understand! I tried looking up what birds were singing when we got home, using the Warbler app (£4.99) and it told me it was possibly a Great Tit, Common Blackbird or Great Spotted Wren.

Brimmer Pond at Headley Heath

Notice about the newts at Headley Heath

We also had a poke about for insects. Looking under old bits of wood is a good idea if you are searching for insects. We found a few disgruntled woodlice plus a couple of large beetles. They scuttled away before we could look any closer at them unfortunately.

Searching under logs for insects

Admittedly I did have to take B to a playground before we went to Headley Heath, but once we arrived and were exploring he really enjoyed it and didn’t want to come home, so I’m now going to describe any outing to a wilder area as a trip to the nature playground!

Headley Heath

June 6, 2019 3 comments

Environment Woodland

30 Days Wild Day 3: Making nature creatures

Today I went for a quick random act of wildness as it was first day back at school, nerves were a little wobbly (them not me. Maybe me a little bit), plus I had unfinished work coming out of my ears to catch up on. I chose an outdoor arty/crafty activity; making nature creatures.

I’ll be honest, I’m not the world’s best crafty mum. I actually don’t really like it that much. All the faff and all the mess for ten minutes of actual art. I’d rather be out and about doing stuff and clambering about exploring with my kids. I leave the craft up to school. But making nature creatures seemed like an easy and fun crafty activity and I want to do more stuff like this if it genuinely is easy, so we gave it a go.

My eldest and I went out in the garden after school and collected leaves of all shapes, sizes and colours plus a few flowers like daisies and pretty weeds, and some sticks and old beech nut shells, moss. Whatever we came across that looked interesting.

I was actually really surprised how much variety there was – we found leaves of all colours, yellow, green, red and brown. Plus lots of colours from the flowers – whites and purples and yellows. My son also added in some of the shells we’ve found over the years too which I thought was very clever.

We laid all our findings out on some white paper and added in a couple of boggly eyes, then began making a few people plus a hedgehog and beach-inspired crab!

The Woodland Trust has lots more ideas here should you want to have a go. I’d definitely do this again as it was minimal mess and fuss, got us outside for half an hour and exploring the garden in a different way. It was also really funny and my sons enjoyed it a lot, laughing at the silly creature we made. I thought they might be a bit whiny, being just before bedtime, but they loved it and have saved the collections for another day. Win!

Making nature creatures, leaves collected from the garden for art

All the natural materials we found

Making the masterpieces

Making nature creatures, crab made from shells

Our seaside-inspired crab made from shells

Making nature creatures, hedgehog made from leaves

Leafy hedgehog

A rather tubby leaf man (or lady)

Making nature creatures

June 3, 2019 3 comments

Activity Adventure London Nature UK Walking Woodland

The best walks in London

Ditch all those thoughts of London being polluted and overcrowded. Our capital has some beautiful places to walk in. Did you know London is one of the greenest cities on earth? And that we’re going to become a National Park City in July? Here’s some of the best walks in London you can have. Some of these walks in London are well-known, and with good reason – they are beautiful; others are under the radar, more peaceful and just as picturesque. I’ve noted where you can get the essentials – coffee and cake – as well as where the nearest toilets and playgrounds are, so all these walks should be pretty family-friendly walks in London too. Settle in with a cup of tea – this is a long post. Told you London was green.

February 10, 2019 5 comments

Environment Seasons Uncategorized Winter Woodland

Woodland activities for children

It’s National Tree Week this week, where we can all take the chance to give our cherished trees a hug! It’s also a great time to look into what woodland activities for children are going on around you – such as tree planting, climbing, woodland walks and foraging. Much outdoor fun with the family to be had.

November 27, 2018 4 comments

Activity Adventure Beach Environment Explore Mountains National Trust Northumberland UK Walking Woodland

Fun things to do in Northumberland with kids

We spent the week of October half term in Northumberland. I’ve always wanted to visit this stunning part of the country. I had visions of windswept moors, deserted beaches and castles at every turn, and it didn’t disappoint. We visited as a family of three generations so it was important we did things that catered for all ages. Here’s a round-up of fun things to do in Northumberland with kids.

November 26, 2018 1 comment