Personalize your outdoor haven with one-of-a-kind accents, décor and more Brighten up your backyard with whimsical garden accents, impressive entertaining ideas, simply silly outdoor games and more. It’s never been easier (or more fun) to perfect your open-air space than with Taste of Home Handmade Garden Crafts. From creating an outside Twister game to hanging custom-made votive lights, you’ll transform your yard into the charming space you’ve dreamed of. Make enchanting windchimes from upcycled materials, arrange delightful picnic-table toppers, give Fido a dog-wash station, and jazz up your garden with handcrafted stepping stones, herb markers and miniature fairy wonderlands. You’ll even learn quick ways to dress up your front door, take advantage of summer blooms and make your summer parties the most memorable in town. CRAFTS Tin Can Herb Set Bowling Pin Butterfly Mini Cork Planters Chandelier Birdhouse Ultimate Fairy Garden 3-Tiered Porch Planter Weekend Deck Fountain Bluebird Bed & Breakfast Red, White & Blue Luminaries Weekend Water Fountain Warm Welcome Matt

Stimulate your child’s senses—right in your own backyard! Steer your little ones away from their screens and into the outdoors with projects designed to spark their insight, dexterity and imagination: Just add mud! With parenting blogger Sophie Pickles’s expert guidance, you’ll transform your backyard into a lively space where your children can experiment with different textures—there’s even a taste-safe alternative!—and understand the wonderful world around them. Using natural ingredients that are on-hand or easily obtainable, you’ll help your kids explore concepts like environmentalism, culinary science, creativity and math, while never losing sight of all the delightful sensory stimulation. Bond over the sheer fun of Shape Play, or try out Muddy River for an introduction to physics. Watch them delight in creating their own food station, with projects like Juice Bar and Mud Café. Better yet, help them build the blocks of critical thinking and observational skills, with activities like Mud Investigation and Mini Beast Hunt. With Mud Kitchen Crafts, education meets fun in a major way.

Cool Outdoor Arts & Crafts makes the great outdoors fun and exciting. Craft a sun-printed scarf or paint a pair of rocks. Make a terra-cotta wind chime or a beaded garden stake. This book is full of easy-to-follow steps and bright photography for every activity. Plus, it's written just for kids! Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Checkerboard Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

One of the keys to a happy and creative classroom is getting out of it and this book will give you the confidence to do just that. Drawing on academic research, Juliet explains why learning outdoors is so beneficial and provides plenty of tips and activities to help you to integrate outdoor learning into your teaching practice, providing a broad range of engaging outdoor experiences for your students. There is no need for expensive tools or complicated technologies: all you need is your coat and a passion for learning - oh, and you'd better bring the kids too! Topics covered include: forest schools, learning outside the classroom, outdoor education, nature activities, caring for the environment, play in schools, investigative play, urban outdoor activities, problem solving, creative thinking and strategies for supporting curriculum objectives. For all primary practitioners who want to shake up their usual classroom routine and discover the benefits of teaching outdoors. Dirty Teaching was a finalist in the Non-Fiction People's Book Prize Winter 2014 collection.

The average child can identify over one thousand corporate logos, but only ten native plants or animals—a telling indictment of our modern disconnection from nature. Soaring levels of obesity, high rates of ADHD, feelings of stress and social awkwardness, and "Nature Deficit Disorder" are further unintended consequences of a childhood spent primarily indoors. The Big Book of Nature Activities is a comprehensive guide for parents and educators to help youth of all ages explore, appreciate and connect with the natural world. This rich, fully illustrated compendium features: Nature-based skills and activities such as species identification, photography, journaling, and the judicious use of digital technology Ideas, games, and activities grounded in what's happening in nature each season Core concepts that promote environmental literacy, such as climate change and the mechanisms and wonder of evolution, explained using a child-friendly, engaging approach Lists of key species and happenings to observe throughout the year across most of North America Perfect for families, educators, and youth leaders , The Big Book of Nature Activities is packed with crafts, stories, information and inspiration to make outdoor learning fun. Jacob Rodenburg is the Executive Director of the Camp Kawartha summer camp and outdoor education centre. As well as publishing numerous articles on children, nature and the environment, he has worked in the field of outdoor education for twenty-five years. Drew Monkman is an award-winning environmental advocate, naturalist, and retired teacher. In addition to his weekly nature column, Drew is the author of two season-based nature guides, including Nature's Year.

Describes a variety of outdoor craft projects using plants from your garden.

Sticks and Stones presents a treasure trove of building and engineering ideas for children to employ in the great outdoors using the materials made readily available to them, from cabins and tipis to bridges and dams. Many smaller scale projects are included, too—such as how to make ochre paint with shale, make a fishing pole, and carve a marshmallow roasting stick. Opportunities and materials for constructive play exist everywhere in nature. Author Melissa Lennig (of the blog Fireflies and Mud Pies) introduces today’s screen-overloaded kids to this world of fun waiting just outside the door. Whether camping or hanging out in the back yard, children will marvel at the wonderful, useful tools and playthings they can create with natural objects. Sticks and Stones details various designs for the ever-popular fort (cabins, tipis, survival shelters, etc.) and also covers structures such as bridges, fences, and dams, while explaining the STEAM principles behind each. In addition to structures, there are other ideas and projects for camping and the backyard, like a fire ring (explaining the types of fires, airflow, and safety), the always useful tripod, a travois, a rock garden, and toy boats. Along the way, there are multi-leveled reading opportunities in the form of quick features on considerations like mindfulness, campfire safety, mini STEAM design challenges, and more. Sticks and Stones is an essential resource for every junior outdoor adventurer.