Last month saw the release of a book that’s right up our street. Published through Quarto Kids, The Wild Year Book is written by Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield and includes 70 different challenges for children to complete throughout the year.
The Wild Year Book is divided into activities for each of the four seasons and each activity has an ‘acorn rating’ showing whether the activities can be completed without varying levels of adult assistance. There are all sorts of activities included within the book making it ideal for children of different ages to enjoy.
We’re big fans of getting outdoors whenever we can and I’m keen for my eight year old son to spend as much time screen free as possible. As you all know, he loves his mini beasts so the Meadow Mini Beast Hunting activity in the book is one we’ll be doing over and over in the weeks ahead.
Each activity in The Wild Year Book gives you easy steps to follow to complete the assignment. My son loves the idea of creating a mini wildlife park with string and twigs, you all know how much he loves his sticks, after all!
We don’t have an old pillowcase to make the sweep net but I’ve promised him I’ll dig out some surplus fabric I’ve got to make a ‘net’ from, and once the sun comes back out to play, we’ll be seeing what mini beasts we can collect.
There are a number of activities within The Wild Year Book which have caught our eyes and I can see us making some Natural Stained Glass hangers now he’s on his summer holidays and we’ll be looking for bush bugs in the garden, using the fabric from our ‘net’ to hold beneath our shrubs and see what we can collect in the weeks ahead.
Not wanting to wish away the summer, but Autumn activities I can see us trying out include Blackberry Tie-Dyeing and Leaf Mobiles to name a couple. The book is crammed full of good ideas to keep kids amused throughout the year.
If your kids would like to take the #screenfreechallenge and get outdoors then we can thoroughly recommend The Wild Year Book and I’ve included my Amazon Affiliate link below in case you fancy buying the book yourself.
disclosure: we were sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I’ve teamed up with Quarto Kids to offer three lucky readers the chance to win a copy of The Wild Year Book. Just complete the Gleam form below for your chance to win. Good luck!
Terms and conditions:
(Please note that all entries will be checked against comments for validation).
Only the first step of this form is mandatory, all other steps are optional. Only one entry per person is allowed.
This giveaway is for UK residents only.
Once a winner is randomly picked, I will check if the winner has done what was requested and I will contact them, if they do not reply within one week, the prize will be allocated to another person. The winner’s details will be sent to Quarto Kids , in order that they can arrange delivery.
The giveaway will close on 22nd August 2018 at midnight.
Don’t forget to visit my Giveaways page for more great prizes on offer!
The Wild Year Book worth £9.99
Hunting for and playing conkers!
My daughter loves collecting leaves
Planting seeds & flowers with me in our garden.
Dog walking along the local riverbank and on to our local woodlands, our favourite thing to spot are dragonflies because they are so pretty!
Rock-hunting.
Bugs and snails – totally fascinated with them
Looking under rocks for creepy crawlies and finding loads
My kids love looking for butterflies
walking up into the woods x
they love planting in the garden
What’s your kids favourite nature activity?
they love to go rock pooling
Signs of nature scavenger hunt, we do it every Easter Morning
Looking for bugs and insects slugs and snails and worms we have a little bug house to put them in with a magnifying glass then when we’ve finished let them go. My little grandson is fascinated.we also like collecting acorns and dried seed heads
rock pool exploring
hunting for bugs x
The children love to collect conkers, dry them then paint them.
Looking for insects and exploring the nature outdoors
my son like going fruit picking
At the moment it’s making bug hotels
My grandson likes to help on our allotment and also likes hunting for bugs.
My daughters love collecting pinecones
climbing trees, finding bugs and planting vegetables in the garden
We love geocaching!
My son just likes to be outside and play in the grass 🙂
Building a den and collecting leaves
They love going on woodland walks and looking for creatures
Collecting leaves and do a leaf print
Conkers, den building & pond/canal dipping
Collecting leaves to make collages with.
Oscar loves watching the ducks – even at the zoo the ducks are his favourite!
Fishing for minnows.
bird watching
My daughter loves collecting leaves and flowers. 🙂
He likes looking for sea shells on the beach.
My son loves looking for sealife in our local rock pools.
My girls love hunting for bugs x
We love looking for the painted rocks that the community have been hiding recently
Counting the trees in Grizedale forest as we walk through!! Not sure they count as high as they like, but it’s good for their maths skills!!
My son loves stamping in the fallen leaves & collecting conkers x
Pond dipping and anything that involves mud.
bug hunting at kielder
We love collecting shells on the beach.
pond dipping and bug hunting
Bug hunting, particularly under ricks.stones
my little one loves making daisy chains!
Bug hunting
Checking out rock pools
Bird Watching
They love collecting shells on the beach
My son loves to collect shells on the beach
Going on a bug safari
Rockpooling and hillwalks in the local nature park
mine love collecting sticks!!
Hunting for butterflies
Walking in woodlands
my daughter likes catching butterflies
I love picking blackberries with my kids and then making a pie with them afterwards.
Trying to catch some tadpoles and frogs
My children like bug hunting and walking in the woods
Feeding the ducks and kicking leaf piles
Searching the rock pools for strange and mysterious creatures.
My eldest son is obsessed with looking at rocks
Walking around to see what new things we can discover nwxt.
Hunting for bugs
my daughter loves collecting leaves and painting them
we love picking the fruit in our local wild orchards, depending on the time of year we get the choice of plums, cherries and apples
We love making nature collages from natural items we find, or going bug hunting!
Walking along the coast trying to spot basking sharks, dolphins and seals.
We love pond dipping in our local country park. It’s an activity we do as a family and with my Beaver Scouts colony too.
Collecting sticks x
Collecting leaves, feathers etc to make pictures
We make hedgehog nests for our wild hedgehogs who come and feed and stay in our garden. We collect leaves in the Autumn that have fallen off the trees ready for their hibernation nests.
My kids love a walk on the beach searching for shells and stones!
They love walking in the woods and making journey sticks with things they find on the way
We love skimming stones
My son loves to go and collect shells.
feeding the ducks 🙂
Collecting shells whilst visiting the beach 🙂 Thanks for running this comp.
We love to go on walks and hikes with the family and our dogs.
Bird watching! (Commenting as Jacqui Rushton)
We love nature and the outdoors and take our girls on nature walks and rambles as much as we can. They love looking for wild flowers, trying to identify trees and bugs and collecting shells on our local beach.
We love bird watching. I have an old bird book and we love flipping through it trying to find birds.
My daughters favorite thing to do outdoors is explore rock pools
collecting shells when we can and we write a list before we go out and see if we can find the items on the list
Exploring shallow streams for fish and waterboatmen – putting them back of course
Bug hunting and den building
Pond dipping or rock pooling
Making journey sticks
Pooh sticks and searching for items in the “I spy” books
Planting flowers