“I’ve been up since 6:30. We had breakfast and showers, we’ve done drawing, puzzles and stories, we’ve been for a bike ride, watched a wildlife doco and baked cupcakes. I have just looked at my watch. How can it only be 9:30am? How am I possibly going to fill the rest of the day with two kids under four?
This was the message I was sent by one of my family members this week.
Firstly, it’s okay if your children get bored. Boredom comes before creativity. Friedrich Nietzsche explained boredom as “the unpleasant calm that precedes creative acts.” I know as a parent, boredom can be accompanied by whinging and whining and that tends to grate on our nerves. However if you can detach from the whining for a minute and just ride it out, you might be surprised by what follows. Help your child to turn the boredom into creativity by setting up some opportunities for open-ended nature play outdoors. Here are some of my favourites that are easy to set up and my son takes them creatively in a different direction every time:
1. Water painting – all you need is a bucket of water and a paintbrush or two and off they go. A wall, a tree, leaves, the paving or your driveway – anything can be painted. It’s a great way to satisfy your water-loving child with a minimum of mess. If you have a suitable space, adding colour chalk can make the activity more complex and can help them discover the joys of colour mixing.
2. Making potions – a great story to accompany this is Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson. Just provide a water container or two and something to crush leaves or other garden items they find and off they go. Citrus leaves and herbs are great for adding scent and flowers can add colour and perfume. I always like to encourage the addition of a special item like a sprinkle of fairy dust (sand) or a couple of feathers from our chicken coop.
3. Cubby building - this is an indoor favourite that works equally well outdoors. You might have a bush that you can simply hollow out underneath for a great hidey space or you might bring a tarp or loose sheet outside and make one with existing trees or a fence. Brooms can double as poles and you can lay a picnic rug on the floor for a great outdoor nook. Our cubby today instantly became a bus which needed topping up with “organic” fuel (the potion he had made earlier).
4. Mud kitchen – While it would be nice to have the full kitchen setup, all you really need is a little patch of dirt where your child can dig, a water source and some pots and pans and bowls. At bush playgroup, we just bring along a water container with a tap and lots of little metal bowls and spoons. Sieves, eggbeaters, funnels or any other nicknacks you might have stashed unused in your kitchen draws help your child improve their fine motor skills and adds to the imaginative play.
5. Bucket in a tree – it’s simple. Just attach a bucket to a rope and throw it over a branch (or a porch beam). Then let the craneworks begin. It might take a few minutes for little ones to work out how to get the bucket up and down, but once they do they’ll have a ball. Let them experiment with filling the bucket with different things they find around the garden, be it water, dirt, leaves, mulch or balls.
These weeks of social isolation can seem like eternity, especially when three hours in the morning can feel like a whole day. And boredom can be stressful as a parent. But perhaps with these open-ended outdoor play opportunities we can begin to see the creative juices flow in our children.
I’d love to hear how your children went with the activities and how they adapted them to their own interests! Feel free to post any comments about what you like or don’t like. Just click on the title to post a comment.