By Contributing Author Nan Gibbons of Eat Breathe Blog
Your backyard is more than a long to-do list, filled with weeds to pull, grass to mow or flowers to plant. It’s a wonderland to enjoy, a jungle to explore or a treasure chest to discover – at least that’s the view from your son’s perspective.
This weekend, turn your backyard into an adventure your entire family can enjoy. Engage your sons, with their limitless energy and affinity for dirt, in imaginative play while you paint the patio or plant a garden. Although your boys will need a bath after the work is over, everyone will enjoy the sunshine, fresh air and opportunity for backyard fun.
Your patio is the perfect place to start your outdoor adventure. Boys love to help and feel needed. Let them pick out decorative flowers to plant, hang and fill the bird feeder, choose potted plants for bricked areas or solicit their input when buying new patio cushions for outdoor furniture. Give them large paintbrushes and let them help stain the wooden picnic table or clean a chaise or table that’s been exposed to the elements. With toy trucks, they can haul decorative stone to the walkway. Harness their energy and helpfulness as you work together.
Gardening and landscaping are additional family activities that offer plenty of fun for imaginative boys. When you turn work into play, you finish the gardening chores faster and teach your children responsibility and valuable gardening skills. While your boys probably won’t get excited about pulling weeds, engage their interest when you turn this chore into a friendly competition. Assign a weedy spot to each family member. Whoever pulls all the weeds first wins five extra minutes in the sprinkler after the work is finished or gets to pick the DVD for family movie night. Your boys might also enjoy competing while adding rocks to the garden. Challenge your sons to pile them neatly in the wheelbarrow or along the stone path. See who can find the smoothest, smallest or flattest rock.
Moving mountains of mulch gives you a ready-made opportunity to praise your helpers. Pretend your boys are in a strongman competition and cheer them on as they carry buckets of mulch to the flower beds. For budding firefighters, pretend the mulch is water needed to douse the fire in the flower beds. Emphasize the need to work as quickly as possible without spilling valuable ‘water’ and praise your boys for working hard.
Boys enjoy using dump trucks to move matter, so put them to work. They can transport stones, mulch, dirt, plants or weeds from one section of the backyard to another. Give them access to the garden before you plant seeds and they can dig and aerate the dirt while exploring with their toy backhoes and other digging tools.
Establish a compost pile to nourish your garden and the food you grow. Let the boys be in charge of your indoor composting bin, especially since it gives them access to tending worms. Boys will love dumping the bucket of plant waste from the kitchen into a larger outdoor bin or pushing a small wheelbarrow filled with yard waste to the compost pile. Using their child-sized tools, they can stir the material in the bin or help distribute it onto the garden.
If you have a spare corner of the yard, give your sons their own backyard space where they can play when work is done. Let them dig and build to their heart’s content. For greater enjoyment, plant treasure like rubber balls, toy cars, Army figurines or coins in the dirt when they’re not looking.
Because gardening is a summer-long project, hang a chalkboard chart in the shed. Let your sons track the garden’s progress or growth. Each week, they can count the tomato, lettuce or cucumber sprouts and record the height of each plant. As they complete chores like weeding and watering, they can chart their hard work. Keeping track helps active boys stay motivated to work in the garden all season and it teaches them perseverance and consistency.
Your backyard is a perfect outdoor exploratory for young boys and your chance to get help with gardening and patio projects. Provide your son with hours of learning and educational fun as you work together to create the perfect outdoor oasis.
About the Author: Nan Gibbons is the proud single mother of her three-year-old son Reid. As a licensed nutritionist and personal trainer, she owns and operates her own personal training business in San Diego. In their free team, Nan and Reid enjoy exploring the beach with their lab mix Cody, putting together puzzles, and having healthy cooking adventures. Visit her blog: Eat Breathe Blog
