Obstacle course

Encouraging outside play; Obstacle course.

I read something this week about how little outside time children are getting and thought that now its spring and warmer that we should make more effort to play in the warmer sunny days.

I notice my son eats so much better and sits still to eat if we walk on the beach every day for an hour (we have a Jack Russel X dog so I have a real commitment to his exercise). So over and above our hourly walk I am going to try create more inviting outside time, this is what we did yesterday.

When i was a kid we loved to make obstacle courses with my brother and sisters. Dylan was talking about doing some Digby training and i thought lets build an obstacle course.

I found some off cuts of wood, a couple of chairs, a table cloth, a broom, a tunnel, a pool noodle, some balls, a cart, a cone (or witches hat) and of course a box. (I love box's).

Dylan helped make the course and this is what we came up with. Digby dog was happy to participate in doing the course also. Digby and Dylan continued to play on the course and then spent some time playing in the tunnel with cars while i had wandered off to feed my 6 month old baby.

The next day i gave Dylan a spray bottle with a small squirt of detergent, a sponge and cloth to play with outside and was amused to see he spent an hour washing his obstacle course and the sliding door. we had several refills of the spray bottle. I guess its a really good strength building exercise for his hands too squeezing the trigger of the bottle. Then once finished washing Dylan sat in the box and used a collection of pumice stone and a container and did some 'cooking'.

Today Dylan has made a duplo obstacle course with trucks & cars involving the tunnel too for his duplo people. He has even taken the sponge off a microphone for a sack race for them and has asked if he can have a sack too, so I am off to find him a pillow case.

I have left the course set up on the deck to see what else happens with it this week. :)

x noni

Switching to sassy,

Inspired by my sisters idea I put an obstacle course together today for Flynn, Eli and their friend Ayden. Its really really heated up here in the tropics, so i wanted to use some water in my course. I filled up a clam shell then placed some plastic tub next to it with coloured water in them, put some water toys in. I tied the hose to the beam on the cubby so they had a waterfall into the paddle pool. I got some spare bessa blocks and made stepping stones to a fort that i made using an old sail, some sheets thrown over my washing line..ahh shade we need you! i placed the slide and a painters stand thingy for climbing under and over. I tied some bubble wrap onto the cubby for popping, and placed a bucket and a tub of slime into the course. They worked their way around finding all the different things spending ages together exploring each thing. Heading back to the water all the time to cool off. I noticed their appetite was fantastic at lunch time! We going to head back out there this avo when the mid day heat is gone....what would you put in an obstacle course?

sassy x

this is being shared on milk and cuddles wednesday linky