Building a small outdoor world

Childhood is the time of the imagination. All children need time and space to practice what’s in their imagination.

Childhood literature is full of woodland dwellers – dwarves, elves, fairies, goblins and gnomes.

Try bringing these imaginary creatures into your outdoor games and allow children unlimited time to build fairy gardens for woodland dwellers using natural materials.

Building a fairy garden will absorb a child’s entire being, maximizing their attention span, imagination and creative abilities.

This activity can be repeated over and over again, to experience hours of play by building small worlds in the midst of nature.

Once introduced to the game, children will expand their ideas and extend their skills, to create their own unique fairy garden.

• Provide each child with a bucket, box, or bag. Collect objects from nature during your outdoor walks. Flower petals, pine cones, leaves, shells, acorns, seashells, pebbles, and seeds are all great materials to work with. Alternatively, you can directly supply children with these natural materials.

• Find a location for your fairy garden. An old stump, tree roots or mossy trunk are ideal, but even a simple lawn will do. Children are able to build fairy gardens even in a flower bed or in a secret corner under the fire escape. This activity, in general, works best if done alone, but it can also be proposed as a group game.

• Discuss with the children what wood dwellers would like to find in their garden – they will probably have the best ideas for themselves: a table and dishes, beds and blankets, a play area with stairs and swings, or a ballroom to dance in. Discuss what natural objects they could use to create (e.g. leaves are great blankets, perfect flat shells and seashells, and so on!).

• Observe them from afar as they continue to set their imaginations in motion.

• Take some time to admire each child’s work in their own fairy garden, paying attention to the details they have included.

Can you visualize the roof of the house carved from a twig, the berry dinner served on a leaf, and the petal path leading to the garden? Paying attention to these details will inspire kids for the next time you go outside building fairy gardens.

BUILDING FAIRY GARDENS FOR THE FOREST DWELLERS, BUILDING FAIRY GARDENS FOR THE FOREST DWELLERS Here is complete details on this topic