Pagan Parenting: No-Buy Garden Lockdown Challenge

I find the October half term the most difficult school holiday in terms of entertaining my kids. The weather isn’t great and there are no family visits to look forward to. My money is being saved for Christmas so there’s no budget for buying craft materials.

This year much of the UK is in renewed lockdown.

We’re somewhat lucky over on the Kent coast to remain in Tier 1. This means we can still sit in cafes with families we don’t live with, still have a friend round, and still go the cinema. However, knowing it’s not necessarily “safe” to do these things means I’m reluctant to and looking for ways to entertain them at home.

I devised this little nature task for them to work on today.

My kids are eight and twelve so I needed something both would be engaged with and could do together.

Without my help was even better as I still have to earn money whilst they’re home.

The instructions

Step One: Find the following items:

Feather
Snail Shell
Empty Plant Pot
Autumn Leaf
Evergreen Leaf
A piece of fruit
Stone

I chose these items because I know they’re all in the garden. Most of these you could also find in the street or park if you don’t have an outdoor space as part of your home.

Step Two: Create a character

Choose one item each to use as inspiration for a character. Kids can draw their characters, create a back story, use role play. This part of the challenge can last as long as their concentration (with my eight year old, that’s not very long)

Step Three: Give them a story

With more than one child their characters can interact. My kids love playing ‘you write a line, I write a line’, but you can also ask them to role play. Or they can hide behind a chair or bed and create a play using their items as puppets. You can use your phone to film and play it back to them.

It’s likely to be a long indoors winter so it’s the perfect time for little outdoor tasks and games. When it comes to the christmas holidays I’m going to need a lot more help to find ways to entertain them. We’d usually do cinema and adventure parks, or gatherings of friends.