Backyard Adventure: Get Messy, Get Wet, Build Cool Things, and Have Tons of Wild Fun! 51 Free-Play Activities

The backyard has long been a space associated with recreation and relaxation, a private patch of earth to escape to, and a springboard for the imagination. In her signature style and drawing on her personal experience as a mother, gardener, and author, Amanda Thomsen encourages kids to create kingdoms of their own making, right in their own backyards. With whimsical projects for every season and any setting, from forest to pavement, fun-seeking kids and their families will rediscover the yard as a place for inspired play, using repurposed materials and existing features of outdoor spaces. Whether they're creating tiny gardens inhabited by action figures, weaving a secret hideaway out of a loom of twine and twigs, or setting sidewalk cracks on fire with Coffeemate, Backyard Adventure lets kids of all ages turn their yards into a place they can call their own. Turn the backyard into an adventure zone, with playful projects and plans for inspiring kids aged 6 to 10 to explore, imagine, and create their own fun. Permission to Play-Granted! Set kids loose and let their imaginations run wild with inspired ideas for self-directed play. Bolts, buckets, bubble wrap, and other everyday items become the building blocks of free-play fun. Kids are transformed into the independent masterminds of their own mud labs and confident kings and queens of their cardboard castles. Make exploding sidewalk chalk, bang on a wall of noise, fly high in a tire swing, launch amazing science experiments, perform on your own outdoor stage, build a straw bale fort, slip & slide on paint, weave through a yarn lazer maze! The Roots of a Wild Child Chapter 1: Forts and Other Hideaways Scrounging for Unexpected Building Materials Forts & Playhouses Natural Burrows Packing-Material Tepee Plants That Make Great Places to Hide Build a Straw Bale Fort Plant a Living Willow Hideaway Cardboard Castles A Fort in Winter Tunnels The Simple Leaf Pile Make a Loom Tent Badger Holes Unexpected Sandboxes Make a Map of Your Neighborhood Hiding Play Materials Chapter 2: Places for Tinkering Create a Mud Lab Marble Racetrack Soda & Mentos Eruptions Setting Booby Traps Make a Slingshot Build a Catapult Protect Your Toys from Pirates Create a Wall of Noise DIY Rube Goldberg Device Bored? No Way! Chapter 3: Naturally Wild Miniature Worlds Grow a Tiny Fruit Tree Natural Paints & Dyes Grow Your Own Snacks Snacks to Identify & Forage Dig Your Own Clay Mown Labyrinth Logs & Stumps Seedo Torpedoes Drums Chapter 4: Setting Up Camp Backyard Camping (Fake) Neighborhood Lore Make a Hand-Washing Station Create an Outdoor Shower Set Up an Outdoor Toilet Make a Fire Pit Hobo Camp Food & Old-Timey Cooking Outdoor Stages for Performances or Fomenting a Rebellion Chapter 5: Sidewalks, Fences, and Driveways a.k.a. Places to Draw Graffiti on Fences Fun on the Driveway Chalk Outlines Exploding Sidewalk Chalk Chapter 6: Adventure Course Swing It! Make Your Own Slip 'N Slide Tough Lil' Mudders Make Your Own Stilts Red Yarn Laser Climb Cardboard Armor Chapter 7: Water, Bubbles, and Goo Sprinkler Setups Make a Water Blob Super Soaker! Baby Pool Fun Pinata Full of Water Balloons Make Giant Bubbles Tyvek Suit Full of Water Balloons Eggshell P