Christmas is coming up (I know, duh). And while I’m sure most of you have all your holiday gifts squared away (wink wink), for those who don’t, this post may help. All are gifts that will encourage you and your family to be outside. Note that they are also realistic, I refrained from listing a Sportsmobile and the entire inventory at Jacks Plastic Welding.

Let’s get right to it, here are my top 10 picks. 5 Things you can make and 5 things you can buy. Plus links to other outdoor Mom bloggers who are posting about outdoor family gifts today as well.

I’d also be interested to know what your’re giving this holiday…

5 Things You Can Make/Assemble

(more…)

Question:

What do MacGyver, astronauts, and outsidemom.com writers have in common?

We all keep rolls of duct tape in our backpacks, our cars, our boats, our spaceships, and our homes.

Ah, the sticky stuff.  That super-adhesive, water-repellant, ultra-durable, handyman-staple:  Duct tape.  I love the sound it makes coming off the role.  The slightly synthetic smell.  But mostly I love the many ways it can be used.  Is there anything in the universe more versatile?  I imagine aliens in every galaxy find it as useful as we do…

Today, we celebrate duct tape and its many uses.  Here’s just a handful of the ways this substance can improve your life.  Did we miss one?  Tell us about it at the end!

Fix Something

1. You can use duct tape to patch darn near anything!

• Backpacks, tents, shoes, hats, or any other leaky piece of equipment.  Duct tape sticks to itself as well as it sticks to anything else.  Put a piece on the inside of the hole, and another on the outside, and stick the pieces together through the hole!  Problem solved.
• Also, ski pants.  I fall a lot on my skis.  I use duct tape at the hems to patch up the rips caused by my edges cutting into the sides of my ski pants every time I tumble.
• Bathtub leaking?  My aunt’s tub has a crack in the floor.  She just taped it over with a strip o the sticky stuff.  That tube probably has another ten years of good use now. (more…)

The following video shows you step-by-step how to make a bracelet, or neckless out of plant fibers. It’s really easy, just happened to be easier to show you through video. This was the first piece of jewelry Joe ever gave me. Come to think of it, it’s just about the only piece of jewelry Joe’s ever given me. Smart man.

The final product will look something like this, depending on what type of plant you use.

I apologize for the camera shakiness in the first minute. Turns out holding an iPhone steady is an art form I had not yet mastered.

If your like me, you’ve procrastinated making your child’s Halloween costume.  Now, with less than a week to go, you’re frantically looking through your cloth scraps, first-aid kits, and compost pile for something you can strap to your child and call it a ‘costume’.  “But I look like a soggy English muffin” your child says, looking in the mirror.  “Nonsense!” you parry, “That’s the darndest unicorn costume this side of the Mississippi!”

For the sake of your child, we’ve put together a small list (well, it started out small) of nature-esque costume ideas that you can throw together with ease.  Well, most of them, some are probably a little to advanced, but we’re craft-challenged. (more…)

So, you’ve got a little Asa Gray on your hands… a kid who stops to smell the roses, and the dandelions, the geraniums, and the four’o'clocks.  She picks bouquets of flowers just to collect them, and is disappointed when they wilt in her sweaty palm before she’s even back to the car.

Looking for something fun and a little different to do with your kids this summer? Something that requires little work on your part, is super-cheap, and will provide hours of fun for them? I’ve got just the thing. Bubbles!

Not just any bubbles either. Really big ones. Tough ones that don’t pop if you blink. Like bubbles should be.

Here’s the recipe (Make the solution the night before and let it ‘set up’ for best results): (more…)

I’m part of a co-op preschool, me and 4 other Moms rotate once a week hosting 2 hours of madness in our homes.  A few weeks ago I got to plan a lesson around the letter S. I focused the activities around the “senses” that start with S: sight, sound and smell. We had class indoors due to a chilly morning wind, but I’m including notes on what I had planned to do outside had the weather cooperated or had I warned parents to dress their children accordingly.

This lesson centered nicely around the following two books:

Introduction Book: My Five Senses, by Aliki

SIGHT

Book: What do You do With a Tail Like This, by Steve Jenkins, Robin Page (Read the section: What do you do with Eyes Like These)
- Do we use our eyes the same way as the animals in the book?
- What do we use our eyesight for?
- Let’s go on a scavenger hunt and see how well we can use our eyes.

Activity: Scavenger Hunt
Cut out or print off  small pieces of paper with the letter S. Write clues on the back of each paper that will lead the children to find the next clue. Hand a child the first clue, follow the clues to find all the letter S’s. Note: An outdoor scavenger hunt would be perfect for this.

Materials:
-Letter S Papers
-Tape

SMELL (more…)

Sometimes a trip around the block takes some careful planning.

I love this website. www.visitidaho.org/children-in-nature. It’s so well done I like to just sit and stare at it. Click on the “view more” icon under the heading “101 Things to do Outdoors”. It has some great ideas for things to do outdoors, even if you don’t live in Idaho, which this site makes me wish I did…

Side note: You also need to click on the sun, moon and music in the top left. Awesome feature.