Can you help me brainstorm some ideas for getting my girls outside?

[melissel]

They're not very outdoorsy kids. They don't just go out and play. DD9 is like me--a dreamy reader. If given the choice to sit inside with me and do extra schoolwork or go outside and play, she will choose schoolwork every time. If she goes out, DD6 would go too, but DD6 won't go alone. I've tried forcing them out, bribing them out, and luring them out. DD9, if forced out, will go for the required amount of time, but will sit and just wait for the time to be up so she can come in.

 

The one time they happily went out and stayed out for hours, I had given them a "job." I told them a story about how my cousin and I used to play shipwreck in my backyard and told them they had to pretend they were shipwrecked. Their eyes lit up, and they spent the next two hours building a spit, attempting to build a tent, gathering "food," etc.

 

I need more jobs to give them! Or ideas! Or something! In the spring they had more ideas of their own (they built a ton of fairy houses), but now that they landscape is drearier, there's not as much for them to do.

 

Can anyone share some ideas that get their kids moving and thinking outside?

 

TIA!

[Sandragood1]

My DD loves this. Collect large cardboards boxes or, even better, corrugated plastic and let them make structures. I great source for the corrugated plastic is old election signs. Maybe you still have some around your area?

 

DD makes a place to read outside. Takes stuffed animals out, etc.

 

Sandra

[OrganicAnn]

What's the weather like? Burning hot, cool, sunny, mild? I think a lot depends on the weather. If it is hot, then sprinkler games are fun. Water pistol fights.

 

Sidewalk chalk.

 

Jump rope.

 

Bikes, scooters.

 

Do you have swings? Trees that you can attach ropes to?

 

Can you make a reading place outside? If they get used to sitting outside reading then maybe they'll play?

 

Don't expect them to play like you played. Find what works for them. Give them a story every day (maybe for the history lesson - pirates, Romans, Egyptians etc)

[melissel]

What's the weather like? Burning hot, cool, sunny, mild? I think a lot depends on the weather. If it is hot, then sprinkler games are fun. Water pistol fights.

 

Sidewalk chalk.

 

Jump rope.

 

Bikes, scooters.

 

Do you have swings? Trees that you can attach ropes to?

 

Can you make a reading place outside? If they get used to sitting outside reading then maybe they'll play?

 

Don't expect them to play like you played. Find what works for them.

 

We're in New Jersey, so it's cool to chilly--today I think it was 67, but it will be cooler tomorrow. We have all of those things, including a play gym that they...just don't care to play on! :confused: DD9 won't go within 10 feet of a bike. We don't own scooters, but maybe that's a good idea for Christmas, hmmm. I was also considering a trampoline with an enclosure. I wish I could figure out what works for them!

[melissel]

My DD loves this. Collect large cardboards boxes or, even better, corrugated plastic and let them make structures. I great source for the corrugated plastic is old election signs. Maybe you still have some around your area?

 

DD makes a place to read outside. Takes stuffed animals out, etc.

 

Sandra

 

Hey, that's a really good idea! They would love that, thank you so much!

[Guest submarines]

Mystery bulb planting and then making a map: tulips in unexpected locations in the spring.

 

Treasure hunts.

 

A sequence of events on the play structure that they need to follow. (Run around it 3 times; slide down twice, count to 100 on the swint; run around the house twice etc)

[Ottakee]

Just as an encouragement, I was your daughter when I was younger. Didn't play outside much, would rather be inside reading, etc.

 

Now as a big person--just in the past few years, I am outside much of the time. I go walking with friends and we do 3-4 miles in ANY kind of weather (ok, not thunderstorms) but we have done it in 15 below, snow, rain, sleet, hail, 100+ temps, etc.

 

We also bought horses and now I have a mini farm to run with 3 cats, 3 horses, 1 dog, and 10 chickens. That makes for a lot of outside time.

[*********]

Hmm; what about bubbles? My boys love those.

[Karen in CO]

You can always do like the kids in Madeline; they go out each morning at a half past nine, rain or shine. We have regular walks everyday. It really helps get the girls outside. Sometimes it is just getting them out there that is the trouble. After our walk, they will often linger in the yard. They enjoy taking some of their inside toys outside to play - plastic animals get towns built in the yard with sticks and rocks, stuffed animals have adventures in the bushes as well as on blankets and on the ground.

 

Our temperature was 47 today, and we went for our morning walk then girls played outside afterward.

[Chris in VA]

Give them some sheets to put over the play structure to make a big fort.

 

Pull out their dress up clothes.

 

Make them an outdoor kitchen with boxes and stumps. Give them an old pot and some spoons. Show them how to "cook" mud soup, leaf tea, etc. LOL!

 

Do nature walks and give them nature notebooks and supplies.

 

Go out with them! (Lots of things you could do...)

 

Play "Spud."

 

Can you pick a small, maybe 3x4 area as a garden for them? Just plant bulbs for a fun start. You could also prepare the soil, if you don't want to do bulbs.

 

Do a leaf collection with bark rubbings with them--you can make one book or individual ones. This can go in the nature notebook, above.

 

Turn the jump rope with them.

 

Teach them new hopscotches, help them draw them, and then play with them.

 

Walk a neighbor's dog.

 

Take a penny walk with them--At every street corner, toss a penny and go left or right based on heads or tails. Take a snack, as these can have you wandering all over the place.

 

Have them "label the yard." You know how preschool/K teachers often label their classrooms? Well, sit with your kiddos and some sentence strips or index cards, and think of labels for outside, then send them out. You can even do it in another language. Esp good for new readers.

 

Give them a stop watch and have them time themselves--how long to run around the house 3 times? Can you do it faster next time? How about measuring--how big around is the biggest tree? How tall is the play structure? Use nonstandard measures, too--how many linking cubes/blocks/legos/chain links tall is it?

 

Pull out a cozy blanket and set up some toys outside to play with--blocks, dollhouse, water play, sensory bin

 

Get an old sheet, fill 3 bottles with unsweetened Koolaid and half the amt of water you'd use if you were going to drink it (use red, yellow and blue, or purple, or...whatever), and put on old clothes. Let them dye the sheet by spraying it. Then let it dry and they can use it for the fort in my first suggestion!

 

Make a bird/animal blind, and then give them a cozy spot to sit in it and use it for observing wildlife, or just for reading.

[lauracolumbus]

A tether ball, four square, badminton racquets, beach balls, hopscotch...

 

Another kid. This always works here.

 

A dog.

 

Have them make obstacle courses for each other.

 

A bug hunt.

 

Have them weed.

 

Send 'em out when it's rainy w/an umbrella.

 

A magnifying glass and sketch book.

 

Laura

[Garga]

Ooo. Some of my best memories are of when my cousin and I somehow got hold of huge refrigerator boxes and made "homes" for ourselves. Can you get some big boxes for them to make homes?

 

I also used to love to go outside with a few umbrellas and make a "house" out of umbrellas.

 

Skates? I had about 2 feet of sidewalk in the backyard, but I managed to skate around on it for a good hour at a time.

 

Taking toys outside (polly pocket type) and using whatever is in the yard as homes, stores, etc. for them. For example, under a bush could be the "scary woods" that the doll has to walk through to get somewhere. The entire yard could be turned into a city for the toys.

 

We used to play "library" and "store" on the porch. It took ages to set up shop, and then we'd take turns buying from the store or checking out books.

[LibraryLover]

ETA: Glad it helped!

Edited November 15, 2011 by LibraryLover

[GingerPoppy]

There are very few kids who can resist a trampoline, so I think that's a great idea. Maybe you could have a very simple tree house built? My grandpa put up these small (like only big enough for one person to sit on) platforms nailed into a tree and connected by ladders, and we spent endless hours up there.

 

Give her a camera with instructions to find shapes or letters in nature and photograph them, or they could do a photo-style scavenger hunt.

[melissel]

These ideas are AWESOME--exactly what I need to get their creative juices flowing!!! Thank you all so much! I'm still :bigear: in case anyone else has other ideas.

 

Thank you!

[Starr]

All those awesome ideas can be worked around a book they are reading or a time in history to go along with "school".

[Joyofsixreboot]

My 8 yo is not an outdoorsy type which makes her odd man out here. I've implemented a routine of sorts.Twice a week we walk, twice a week the park, 1x week a nature walk and the last two days our yard where she usually ends up on the trampoline. She will go play if other kids are around she just doesn't get excited to play with her siblings. I remember as a kid my mom sending me out to the swing or the tree to read. She said at least the air was fresh. More likely she just wanted me out :lol:

[nono]

My kids seem to like to act out the stories I told them the night before. But, I don't do the fairy type things. For instance, a couple nights ago, I told a story about SEED. Seed was a sunflower seed and I talked about his travel from the mother plant to finally becoming a plant on his own (behind two low bushes). I worked in the element of seasonal living in a shore town -- the owners were suprised when they got back in the late spring to see that Seed had made himself at home...

 

Sometimes, they'll spontaneously go out, but often I'll prompt them to do the play acting by saying, "Go outside and play Seed." So, maybe yours can be prompted to act out whatever you read to them the day before? :)

 

Also, I second the reading outside as much as possible. (Think spring!) My kids learned the movement of the sun by which porch we went to for shaded reading throughout the day!

[SweetMissMagnolia]

kinda like the shipwrecked theme could you kind of have it go along with whatever you're studying in history or similar....like read about something and then go play it.......jump ropes--batons---do they have a "clubhouse" type area? I want to get my son one or get dh to make him one...I think he'd have a blast with it...

[Jaz]

How about a package of army men? Your girls can set up battles, drop rocks, dig trenches.

 

Or could they make fairies and set up fairy worlds outdoors?