Recently, I took my kids on a long overdue trip to visit their country cousins. It was the very first time they had ever been on a farm and it was oh so evident as we made our way along the meandering driveway toward the farm where my dad was born & raised, I announced ‘we’re here!’ And my son sighed: ‘now we just have to find a car park.’ Wow, I never felt so ‘city’ before.
Nature Play SA has created a list of the 51 things your kids need to do before they’re 12 – it’s full of fantastic ideas to get your kids outside and amongst nature, the benefits of which are evident. I had to google number 6 but the rest were things I reckon we could just about handle. I’d like to add ‘visit a farm’ to the list. It’s really every boy’s dream holiday… off-roading in an ‘armadillo’ to a distant paddock to ride on a real life tractor, sitting on a horse, getting eye-to-eye with a cow, climbing to the top of a hay stack and then jumping down to the soft hay below, making as much noise as you like without fear of offending your neighbours, chasing chooks and collecting eggs, the list goes on. In fact, you could just about get through all 51 items on this list in one farm visit!
LIST – 51 THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU’RE 12
1. Climb a tree
2. Sleep under the stars (even in your backyard)
3. Fall off a bike
4. Learn to swim
5. Build a cubby or tree house
6. Find a geocache in your neighbourhood
7. Go beach combing after a storm
8. Cook damper in a campfire
9. Go on a camp in the bush
10. Catch a wave (start with a small one)
11. Play chasy in the rain
12. Catch a yabby in a dam (or least have fun trying)
13. Make a water slide with builder’s plastic and a hose
14. Find a cave
15. Make something with things you find
16. Play in a creek
17. Do something you’re scared of
18. Watch kangaroos in the wild
19. Slide down a grass hill on cardboard
20. Yell “cooee” in a gorge or a valley
21. Camp on a beach
22. Build a sandcastle city
23. Skim a stone
24. Plant something and watch it grow
25. Play spotlight
26. Ride your bike on a bush trail
27. Visit an island
28. Go for a two-way hike
29. Snorkel at the beach or on a reef
30. Ride a flying fox
31. Play under a sprinkler
32. Climb a big rock
33. Play in the bush for a whole day
34. Visit a waterhole
35. Meet kids in a park and invent a game
36. Paddle a kayak
37. Dig for worms in your backyard
38. Catch a crab
39. Learn the native names for five plants and five animals
40. Visit a national park
41. Catch a fish
42. Play on a rope swing
43. Eat bush tucker
44. Make a kite and fly it
45. Jump in a muddy puddle
46. Identify the birds in your backyard
47. Go abseiling
48. Catch a tadpole (and release it)
49. Make a mud pie
50. Find a lake, puddle, pond etc and use a magnifying glass to spot the creatures in it
51. Play beach cricket
Find out more at www.natureplaysa.org.au