Here at Chimney Sheep, we value outdoor play activities for children! It’s brilliant for both our physical and mental health – and of course a way of providing endless entertainment for children during the holidays. We created our Go Outside range with families in mind, to encourage more people to get outside! We want to make playing outside a bit more fun and interesting by doing something a little different. Whether your child is arty, sporty, into bugs or flowers, here are 6 suggestions to keep them entertained outside instead of stuck in the house.

Make a den through outdoor play

The British weather can sometimes be unpredictable, our British Woodland Den Kit allows outdoor play no matter the weather. Children create their own nature playground and let their imaginations take over! With easy-to-follow instructions on how to get the perfect setup, this den becomes the base of their secret club. An alien spaceship, pirate ship, a base for tag, a colouring station, a snack zone, protection from dinosaurs or a zombie apocalypse, a fortress, a princess castle or just somewhere to unwind – this den really can become anything imaginable.

Easy to set up and packed into a cotton haversack bag, children can take this kit anywhere. Both the tarpaulin and groundsheet are waterproof and rot-resistant to be re-used time and time again. Best of all the haversack bag can be machine washed!

Go on a picnic

We know a picnic might seem like rather an obvious suggestion, however, we’re here to provide you with 100% recycled products to make picnics much more environmentally friendly. Spend the morning making sandwiches, fruit bowls, veg sticks and dip, add some cheeky crisps and pack them all into our recycled plastic food containers. Head out to the local park, woods, or even the beach for a picnic in the sunshine. We’ve got all sorts of recycled plastic items that would be useful to take with you on a picnic, such as recycled plastic plates, recycled plastic cutlery and a useful recycled plastic foldable picnic blanket.

Explore our ecosystem

The world of insects is extraordinary, to say the least! Our children’s Entomology Kit provides the best tools to be able to capture and examine the tiny, delicate mini beasts of the Earth. With an easy-to-follow guide and some helpful insect spotter cards, your child will enjoy a day full of learning and outdoor play.

Bugs are often frowned upon for eating our plants or scaring us with their 6 legs, yet bugs are invaluable to us and our ecosystem. As the insect population continues to fall it’s more important than ever to encourage the next generation to love nature and everything that comes with it. We love nothing more than getting out and about to explore and learn – take look at bug life for a fountain of knowledge on all creepy crawlies.

Nature art

Bring the crafts outside and mix up the usual drawing for an adventure! Put the children’s creative minds to work with our Herbarium Kit, Flower Press Kit and Natural Fabric Art Kit.

Each Kit provides a different way to learn about and experience the outdoors through outdoor play!

A Herbarium is a delicate collection of dried plants. When making a Herbarium you should make sure to collect average-sized leaves or flowers that show what the plant most typically looks like, and not the biggest leaf you can find, for the most accuracy! You should also jot down any important information about the plant like where you found it, and it wouldn’t hurt to draw a picture or take a photo either. It’s best to think of a Herbarium as your own mini-library of plants and flowers, so take great care of it and add as much detail as you can! Take a look at our Herbarium Kit – it has everything you need.

The Flower Press Kit teaches an age-old art of preserving flowers by pressing them and we think it should continue to be passed down the generations and not get left behind in a world full of technology. Pressed flowers last for years and are a great way for children to remember days out full of exploring.

We even have a kit for any young minds wanting to combine art and nature together – our Natural Fabric Art Kit! Spending time outside around the dazzling colours of flowers is sure to get any artist excited. Let them experiment with the gorgeous natural colours in this kit (dried beetroot powder, dried turmeric powder, dried spinach powder and charcoal, to give red, yellow, green, and black).

Go up a Fell!

Are you thinking of visiting the Lake District? Or maybe you’re lucky enough to already live in the local area? How about taking a trip to one of our nature sites – Low Fell nature reserve! Take a picnic and your camera and come and see our tree planting progress for yourself!

We created our Community Interest Company Buy Land Plant Trees to give back to nature. 20% of the profits from Chimney Sheep go towards Buy Land Plant Trees, helping us to help you reduce your carbon footprint, as well as a bunch of other benefits like flood prevention and habitat creation!

Pack and go

Not sure where you’re going, or just trying to make a walk a little more adventurous? Why not take some of our smaller kits with you for a fantastic outdoor play activity?

Our mini Bug Spotter Kit lets your little ones capture and investigate bugs and even has some handy information cards to help identify some of the more common types – why not make a game of it and try to match as many of the cards as you can?

The Patterns in Nature Kit is less bug-focused and instead encourages children to look for the amazing natural patterns that form all around us, whether they’re patterns on flowers, leaves or bugs. Some natural patterns truly are fascinating, the spiral on a snail’s shell, a honeycomb pattern, or a fractal pattern such as a snowflake or leaves on a tree (a fractal is a pattern that the laws of nature repeat at different scales). The kit includes cards that show real-life patterns and a beech-wood fly-eye kaleidoscope, so any surface will reflect a symmetrical masterpiece.

Before you head out, how about throwing our plastic free bucket, flyer, and wheat-fibre bio plastic spade into your rucksack? The bucket and flyer are both made from silicone so can be bent and squashed down into any space and they’ll just bounce right back into shape, and the children’s spade is compact enough that you’ll barely notice it’s there. Hours of fun can be had down at the beach building sandcastles, digging holes, or just seeing who can throw the flyer the furthest!

Need more ideas on how to keep kids busy in the holidays? Check out our blog full of outdoor summer fun suggestions.