I had been creating a giveaway post for a lovely set of Lonely Planet Kids books all about recording holiday memories. One of the double pages reminded me of our popular colour by nature activity last year. With a little twist on last year and inspiration from the book I had a new afternoon of creative fun mapped out turning a rainbow of summer flower colours in to nature flags with a little challenge at the end.
After a beautiful sunny week we had a rumble of thunder and a few humid spots of rain just as we were due to start. I quickly ran through the idea of hunting for every colour under the rainbow in summer flowers and using these to complete nature boards and decorate homemade flags.
Scavenger hunt for a rainbow of summer colours
Then we took our boards of rainbow colours and collecting trays and scoured the lawns, gardens and hedgerows for a little of every colour. I have to say early summer is perfect for finding rich purples, pinks and yellows, though we did struggle with black. A few old leaves from last autumn were deep shades of brown and red and almost black as was the odd feather.
We stopped to see if there was nectar in the honeysuckle yet, smell the last of the wild garlic and play with sticky weed; these are all nature activities I remember from my own childhood.
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Finally we took our brimming haul back to the craft tables. Thankfully the threatened rain never amounted to much. With a little sticky back tape we secured a sample of each colour to our rainbow pallet boards.
Lets get crafty with nature flags
Then with the creativity flowing we cut flags from old sheets and stapled them round collected sticks to make a flag. Once the fag was formed the fun started. The children took their time designing their nature flags, taking account of heavier items near the stick to allow the flag greater movement. We secured their chosen designs with sticky tape and staples and added a few felt tip finishing touches.
A crazy competition
I had a plan for our finished flags. We would use them on the crazy golf course in place of the regular flags and have a golf competition. I managed a quick snap of everyone with their flags before they chose a hole to make their own.
Then the fun began. We counted number of shots per hole taken by everyone, and thankfully with no rigging from me everyone won at least one hole!
We untied the nature flags for the children to take home with them as a little reminder of a fun afternoon on the farm.
“Tales from the farmers wife” shares life on our lovely holiday farm with Farmer Nick and our 6 children. Step into our beautiful 30 acres and experience nature close up with farming and educational crafts in stunning North Cornwall. Family, fun and adventure start here.