Creating an Outdoor Playscape

June 6, 2012
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Kids will love pretend play all summer long in this easy-to-create Outdoor Playscape! Come take a peak at the the different ways to play!

outdoor playscape

 

Outdoor Playscape

I love creating areas where my kids can dive into a world of their own and let their imaginations soar! I have always created these playscapes inside, but in the spring we created an outdoor playscape. It evolved as we rearranged where our kid’s playhouse would go.  And we created it all (with the exception of some extra bags of dirt) from things we had laying our our house/attic anyway!

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My kids love helping me plant our gardens. But they are always disappointed they don’t get to plant & replant. So out of scrap boards my husband created their own garden. I laminated some seed pictures for them to use as seed packets or labels. They kids can use their shovel, rakes, hand tools, and gloves to move the dirt around and plant/dig up veggies to their hearts content!April 2012 617
The house itself is seated on 2 scrap boards my husband had leftover from another project. They make a great foundation for the house & porch! You can see in the picture I painted part of the boards with leftover green spray paint to look like grass. Then I painted the other side red and used a black sharpie to make bricks for their front walk & porch. Inside the house we put an old indoor/outdoor rug we had laying around to give them a carpeted house. And we moved some of our play dishes in the house.
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Summer Activities for Kids

Around the house we put leftover white picket fence that use to be around a garden bed. Now it gives their house a pretty look and makes it a a home of their own. I used an extra planter box outside their window. There are silk flowers they can plant/replant as they like. Minnie is VERY into flowers right now.

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I even added some bugs to our garden. Tinker bell LOVED digging out the bugs!
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Here is Minnie relaxing on her porch, enjoying her new garden. It was so simple and fun to put together. My kids are delighted – bring on those lazy summer days!

Have you tried making your own diy puffy paint? It's really easy to whip up a batch of puffy paint recipe that will delight and engage children to create. This is a special kind of 3d painting for kids using homemade foam paint. You will love how easy it is to make this diy foam paint to let toddler, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 4th graders creat amazing artwork! If you have a fairy fan at your house you will love this super cool DOY fairy jar craft project! With just a couple simple materials you can make a mason jar night light that will actually glow in the dark. This fairy craft is perfect for preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th garde, and 6th graders.  Whether you make your fairy light jars as a fun summer activity for kids or as a tinkerbell craft - this is sure to be a hit in your house!  quick and easy-to-make peanut butter playdough. This simple playdough recipes is no cook and made without creatm of tarter! Best part, afer your kids are done playing, this is a completely edible peanut butter playdough recipe! This edible playdough recipe is perfect for celebrating PB&J Day on April 2nd, Peanut Butter Day on January 24th, a hands-on back to school activity, or just as a playful sensory activity for toddler, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, and first graders any day.  You will love this outrageously fun painting with cars activity where kids will make a cheery rainbow painting using hotwheel vehicles. This rainbow painting for kids is a silly rainbow painting ideas that your kids will LOVE! Use this for a rainbow theme, car theme, spring theme, or just a fun play ativity with kids. Try this car activities for kids with toddler, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, and first grade students. 

Preschool Activities

Looking for a fun, engaging pasta craft? This pretty stained glass pasta project has so many different possibilities to let your children explore their creativity, create something unique and beautiful, and strengthen coordination with those little hands. In this pasta art you will use dyed pasta to creat a beautiful stained glass craft. This stained glass art for kids is perfect for toddler, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, and 2nd graders.  Tin Foil Art  This EPIC summer activities for kids uses a really fun technique to make squirt gun painting! This water gun painting is such a fun summer art project for toddler, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 4th graders. The squirt panting is as much fun to make as it is to look at afterwards with the unique patterns. This Summer Painting for kids is a MUST for your list of summer activities for preschoolers! Making a DIY foosball table is a really fun STEM project for kids of all ages to make together and loads of fun to play with too! The diy games for kids is the project for a rainy day or as a summer bucket list idea.  Try this homemade games for kids with preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 4th graders too. This EPIC kids activity is sure to be a hit with your kids.

Have you ever heard of a lemon volcano? Kids are going to love this fun, creative,volcano experiment that screams summer! This simple lemon volcano experiment is perfect for curious kids from toddler, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd graders too. All you need are a few simple materials to make some amazing erupting lemon volcanos! Looking for a really fun and memorable science experiment for kids? You will love these EPIC pop rocks experiment. Try this pop rocks science experiment with preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 4th grade students to try a simple chemical reaction. This Whether you try this pop rocks science experiments for homeschool science, at a science birthday party, or as part of a summer science project - this is a MUST try,  really cool science experimentkids will LOVE. The goal of an amazing science experiment for kids is to grab kids attention and make them wonder why did that happen, how could that work, and I want to try that! This leak proof bag is such a simple science experiment for kids that explores polymers. What's best is this amazing science experiment with everyday materials! Try this water experiment with kids of all ages from toddler, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 4th graders too. Whether you are having a doctor theme preschool unit, talking about germs, community helper activity, or are just looking for a fun and silly craft for kids, you will love this band aid art project for toddler, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, and 2nd grade children. You are going to love this really fun, creative craft for kids!

Summer Fun

Looking for more outdoor activities for kids and things to do in the summer? Your toddler, preschool, pre k, kindergarten, and elementary age kids will love these fun ideas to keep them busy all summer long:

super cute cut and paste subtraction math craft to practice addition in kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade students. Summer Number Worksheets Practice tracing lowercase alphabet letters with these super cute Alphabet Sandcastles. Use these super cute beach worksheets to sneak in some fun summer learning in between all your summer activities to keep up skills and avoid the summer leaning loss. These free beach printables include letter find, beach i spy, beach math, counting, addition, skip counting puzzles, and so much more. This HUGE pack of over 70 pages of beach worksheets for preschool, pre k, kindergarteners, and first graders is so handy! Simply download pdf file with summer worksheets for preschoolers and you are ready to play and learn with a beach activity for kids!

Free Beach Printables

Looking for more summer beach themed printable worksheets and activities for kids? You will love these free resources:

These super cute crab themed summer math worksheets are a great way for children to learn, practice and review essential math skills! These free math worksheets allow preschool pre-k, and kindergarten age students to learn to recognise and write numbers, shapes and fractions. Simply print preschool math worksheets and you are ready for yoru summer theme or ocean theme. Looking for a hands-on summer math activity to practice adding? These super cute and clever addition puzzles use free printable addition worksheets to sneak in some summer learning with kindergarten, first grade, and 2nd graders too.  These summer worksheets for kindergarten are easy to prep and learners can practice addition to 20 while having fun at the same time. Simple print the addition to 20 worksheets and you are ready to go!  kindergarten summer math worksheets Kids will enjoy getting out and walking around the neighborhood, getting some exercise, while searching for different items such as a towel, ice cream and crab, as part of this Summer Scavenger Hunt. Families will love that this summer scavenger hunt for kids is no prep, just print and head out for a fun summer activity for kids where kids will work on their power of observation! Use this scavenger hunt for summer printable with toddler, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade students as it contains not only the name, but a cute picture too.  Simply download pdf file with summer scavenger hunt pdf in color or black and white and you are ready to play!

Summer Worksheets

These pages will allow you to get in some low-prep practice with a variety of math from telling time, counting, writing numbers, number recognition, and more!

camping-math-worksheets-for-preschoolers Kids will have fun practing forming sentences with this super cute, smores themed, complete sentence game. This free printable complete sentences game is perfect for first grade and 2nd graders who are learning to form a proper sentece with a capital letter, punctuation, noun and verbs. Simply grab the pdf file with sentence building games and you are ready to play and learn with a sentence game. Marshmallow-Ten-Frame-Printable-Activity-663x1024  quick and easy-to-make peanut butter playdough. This simple playdough recipes is no cook and made without creatm of tarter! Best part, afer your kids are done playing, this is a completely edible peanut butter playdough recipe! This edible playdough recipe is perfect for celebrating PB&J Day on April 2nd, Peanut Butter Day on January 24th, a hands-on back to school activity, or just as a playful sensory activity for toddler, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, and first graders any day.

Camping & Smores Printables

Looking for more camping worksheets preschool and ideas for your next camping trip? You will love these resources:

summer handwriting worksheets Free Pool Writing Numbers Simple matching letter game is a great way to work a little letter recognition into your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten child's day while still having fun with summer activities for kindergarten. Children will insert the shoverl into the sand pail for this free printable, matching upper and lowercase letters activity. Simply download pdf file with alphabet matching and you are ready to play and learn with this beach theme or summer theme activity.

Summer worksheets for kindergarten

Looking for more fun, summer theme educational activities for prek and kinders? Check out these free summer printables!

Bubble Word Families activity for kindergartners FREE Surfboard Opposite Puzzles - these free printable summer themed opposites puzzles are such a fun way for preschool, kindergarten, and first grade kids. Perfect for summer learning, spring / fall literacy centers! SO CUTE! #opposites #kindergarten #literacy Free Seed letter find worksheets for kindergartners for spring or summer learning swim goggle summer lowercase alphabet matching

Summer Printables

Celebrate the first day of summer on June 20th by printing out one of these super cute, FREE Printable Bookmarks. These are such an easy way to get kids excited about reading! free printable counting firefly math worksheets watermelon printable rhyming words worksheets If you are looking for a fun, simple way for kids to learn about the life cycle of a mosquito, then you will love these fun and free printable Mosquito Life Cycle Worksheets. Simple print these life of mosquito to practice a variety of math and literacy skills while learning about life cycles for kids with preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, and first graders.

Summer Learning

summer alphabet tracing Lego BUild and Write creative writing prompts bee-ten-frame-math-worksheets butterfly activity

Summer Theme

Beth Gorden is the creative multi-tasking creator of 123 Homeschool 4 Me. As a busy homeschooling mother of six, she strives to create hands-on learning activities and worksheets that kids will love to make learning FUN! With over 20 years educating children, she has created over 1 million pages of printables to help teach kids alphabet, math, science, English grammar, history, and so much more! Beth is also the creator of 2 additional sites with even more educational activities and FREE printables - www.kindergartenworksheetsandgames.com and www.preschoolplayandlearn.com. Beth studied at the University of Northwestern where she got a double major to make her effective at teaching children while making education FUN!

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2 Comments

  1. I know this post was from a while ago but was interested in your white picket fence and where you purchased it… If you remember! The design of it fits what I’m looking for, perfectly! Thanks.

    Reply

    1. We purchased it at Menards….. a looooooong time ago 😉 If they still sell it, it would be in their outdoor fence area.

      Reply