Some nature lockdown ideas!

Lockdown number erm 3 is it?

I have lost count and I, like a lot of people am feeling fed up and cheesed off. Obviously, it’s important to follow the safety rules and we all need to pull together but it is totally okay to feel sad, worried, bored, angry, disappointed or even relieved.

Now a lot of you are back to home-schooling I thought I would pop a few more things up on the blog about what sort of thing toddler G is up to.

A lot of these things can be made more challenging for an older child too.

It’s winter and frosty so the birds are hungry. Toddler G loves helping me fill up the bird feeders so we do that together every week but I thought I would add some extra ideas to fill some time and the bird’s tummies.

We mixed bird seed, meal worms and sunflower seeds in to a big bowl with some melted lard and a couple of spoonsful of flour.

If you have older children it would be a great way to introduce weighing and measuring.

Mix it all together and then squash it in to biscuit cookers and make a small hole through the middle.

Leave overnight to dry and harden and then you can thread some string or ribbon through them and pop them up on the trees outside, they look pretty and the birds love them!

Was anyone else’s toddler sad when the Christmas tree came down?

Toddler G was so we decided to make a ‘January Tree’.

We collected twigs on one of our walks and I raided my old sewing kit and the craft box for embroidery thread, ribbon, pretty beads and pipe cleaners and we decorated the twigs, popped them in a jar and they now cheer up the kitchen table with a bit of colour.Toddler G particularly enjoyed tipping all the beads all over the kitchen floor!

They are simple to make, you just need to fill a bowl or large yogurt carton, we used an empty hot chocolate carton with water and some nature finds (berries, leaves etc), put an empty tin or something inside it, we used an empty ground pepper pot, with a stone in it to hold it down and put it in the freezer (or leave it outside at night if it’s cold enough!).

When it’s frozen, gently take it out of the bowl, running it under some warm water and remove the tin. Fill the inside container with hot water and this should slide out too.

Then pop a tea light in it and enjoy your lantern!

I love this and it makes a lovely gift to post to any grandparents who your little ones are missing during lockdown.

Cut out a pine tree shape in cardboard and then cut it out and cut a little line each side of the triangle part then slide the rubber bands into the little cuts you made on the triangle.

You can crisscross the rubber bands or go straight across. I find mixing it up helps with the weaving process.

Gather branches and berries from your garden or from your walks and weave into and across the elastic bands, voila you have a beautiful wintery decoration to keep or send!

Again, this is another great one for getting your little ones outside and busy collecting things for crafting.

We collected lots of different coloured green leaves and chopped them all up.

Toddler G loves using scissors and with careful supervision and help he is allowed but older children can do this alone or you can do it for them.

Try to use as many different leaves as possible, fir trees, pine needles etc all work really well and also smell delicious!

Pop all the leaf confetti in to a large bowl and draw some trees on to a piece of card and let your little one cover the green part in glue, and then let them get stuck in to sticking all the bits of cut up leaves.

You could make this suitable for older children by making a rainforest collage instead and learning all about the parts of the rainforest including the animals that live there.

I hope these ideas inspire you to head on out in to nature and start collecting bits and pieces and give you a few suggestions about what to do with your days.

I think most importantly we need to be gentle with ourselves as these are strange and uncertain times and if you need to let the BBC do some of your home schooling for you then that is wonderful too!

Stay safe Funky Fans, love to you all. X