Small Fry Outdoors Giveaway!
Winners Announced!
Thanks everyone for sharing your childhood memories. It was lovely to read through them and reflect on my own childhood outdoors. Things have certainly changed in a generation, haven’t they?! Congratulations to the two winners of Small Fry Outdoors – Tara and Fern. (Randomly chosen numbers are below…) Next week I’m giving away the last Small Fry book which has just been released.
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If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know that I love spending time outside with my kids. I believe that sunshine and fresh air should be a part of every child’s diet, that nature provides a better playground than we could ever design, and that imaginative play flourishes outdoors. If you’re nodding your head, you’ll love the second book in the Small Fry series.
Small Fry: Outdoors is a personal favourite of mine. Partly because it affirms that what I do outside with my kids isn’t crazy, partly because it inspires me to get out there more, and partly because it is packed full of great ideas and gorgeous photographs. Caroline Webster joins the team as the author of Small Fry: Outdoors and shares page after page of wonderful content.
I love her approach to exploring the garden through children’s senses, and ideas such as delicious ice cubes with edible flowers, fragrant tussie-mussie bouquets, and exciting night walks. There is a brilliant seasonal guide that includes what to eat and what to plant for Australian spring, summer, autumn and winter. Plus simple activities that you’ll likely remember from your own childhood such as cloud watching and jumping in puddles. In Caroline’s words, “The outdoors is where imagination and discovery collide in the most spectacular fashion.” I wholeheartedly agree.
I have two copies of Small Fry: Outdoors to giveaway to SquiggleMum readers this week. To enter, simply leave a comment sharing something you remember from your own childhood outdoors. Aussie residents only, one entry per person please. Winners will be drawn at 6pm this Friday, 9th October.
PS – stay tuned for a fabulous guest post from author Caroline Webster this week!! You can follow her on twitter @salisburydowns.
Winning comments:
Frosty winter mornings skating (or really slipping around) on our over-turned galvanised metal water-tank…what WAS my mother thinking?!
I remember Summer days filled with water play. Running under the sprinkler, water fights across the yard and the all time favourite slip and slide using plastic, soap and water. They were a lot of fun and resulted in all types of minor injuries. Our little ones will probably not get to play these games with such water wastage, but they were fantastic times.
I remember climbing trees and watching the cars go by, drawing with chalk on the drive way and playing cars, riding my bike to the beach and camping with the family.
Catching frogs in my aunts creek with my cousins. So not me now but fun when I was six, they did not like it when we brought them back and put them in the pool (frogs or aunty)
My sister and I would make up all kinds of adventure/ make believe games outside. Our big 2 seat tricycle became an ice-cream van. The clothes line became a show ride for our toys. The yard was a place of endless play opportunities.
we lived on the mornington peninsula so most weekends were spent bike riding along the coast and stopping off to play in the rockpools, collecting shells and crabs or jumping of the piers or build forts in the scrub around the cliffs, Then we’d stop for a picnic or a bbq on the beach (dad used to try and make us eat the sea snails and abalone he would dive for – maybe thats why I dont like seafood now).
As kids my brother and I were always playing outside. Our dad built us a tree house-well it was more a platform in the tree with a ladder, but we thought it was cool! When we weren’t in the tree, we were down the river collecting all sorts of things out of it-who knows what we brought home??? These a just a few of the small adventures we got up to, but i still love being outside, except when its cold and rainy!
[...] You can buy her book here, or enter this comp to win a copy! [...]
I remember heading to my brother-in-laws property about 2 hours out of the city. My little sister and I would climb the mulberry tree and eat the berries. What would start with us squeezing the juice and then rubbing it on our lips so we had lipstick on would end up in full blown mulberry fights. We would then sheepishly head back to the house covered head to toe in the mulberry juice. Needless to say, we weren’t very popular!!
As a child we lived on an acre bush block which was heaven when it came to playing outdoors. I made a secret “fairyland” which was within an area of trees (which I would also climb). Another area I made tunnels between chicken-wire type shrubs.
Needless to say I was no fairy when I came back to the house & onto mum’s white carpet filthy from the black sand
Oh the memories……..
i remember playing over the paddock across the drain with the rabbit we had when we lived in the caravan park i would have been about 3 years old then! funny what you remember
My sisters and I would rake leaves into house plans and play for hours. To this day we love looking at house plans and visiting show homes.
Stirring a big tankful of manure and compost stuff with my grandmother!
I remember looking for mud crabs under rocks by the water’s edge not far from our house. Being sent outside to the garden to collect herbs for dinner, and being so careful to get the right ones! Swinging on the big slab of timber hung so rustically from the big old tree outside….
I had a black labrador dog growing up and I can remember getting home from school and walking straight out the back door into the yard every afternoon to play with her.
Another favourite memory was gathering mulberries from our neighbours had a mulberry tree. We would all end up with purple fingers (and faces) and then mum would make delicious mulberry pies (if we had any berries left over).
Going for long bike rides with a friend from up the road…back then, no one thought anything of two 11 year olds riding up to 2 kms away from the house!
I have this book – it is awesome .Should I be lucky enough to win I’d happily swap it for next week’s competition !
The thing that sticks out for me was the naturewalks along the beach with my Dad, I found a dogfish skull and it was possibly the coolest thing ever!
I have Small Fry’s cook book and play book (both are great) – this is the only one I don’t have. One thing that has been brought back to me as we have moved back to the country is making daisy chains. I can still sit and do it for hours! Sandra x (ps. you can win Small Fry Play over at my blog this week – can I say that?)
We spent alot of time outside.
We would often make up games or make mud pies or just go exploring. Things are very different to when i was a kid.
Climbing trees in the backyard! And looking after the bantams at my Grandma’s – all the cousins had one & she would save eggs from ‘our’ chook for us to eat when we stayed with her.
The chooks lived in an almond grove & we would harvest the almonds each year. My sister & I would hold the bags while Dad knocked the nuts off the trees. Yum!
One of my favourite memories from a kid playing outdoors, was playing underneath our big fruit trees. We would make our own shops and sell fruit and squeeze juice for ourselves. Myself and my sisters would play uninterrupted by adults for hours.
I love that as a child in the bush I only had to where a pair of pants and I was right for the day! No need to dress up!
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