Grass Castles and Bark Houses

Head outside and try your hand at building some grass castles and bark houses.

Grass Castles

Aiden loves playing outside in the grass. Our grass was extra tall and in need of being mowed. He was pulling at the grass and adding it to his castle bucket. That gave me a idea. Building sand castles is always so much fun. I wonder if we could make a grass castle??

We filled his sand castle bucket up with grass. We pushed the grass down, and added more. We kept doing this until the bucket could hold no more.

Aiden tipped over the bucket and dumped out the grass.

 

Here’s our grass castle.

Ok, so it doesn’t really look like a castle, but the mound of grass was perfect for a pretend castle.

Bark Houses

We have several logs in our backyard. We use them for play and for seats. Aiden especially likes to play with this giant log. It has a hole in the middle, so it’s great to explore.

One day, he popped the bark off of the log to see what was beneath. It was a lovely insect investigation as there were ants, bugs, and beetles all under the bark.

What to do with the leftover bark? You build houses, of course!

I love how grass castles and bark houses are fun to build all by themselves, but they are also great for pretend play. Who lives in the castle? Who will visit the bark house? This reminds me of a small world play scene I shared over at Kids Activities Blog. Aiden and I used rocks and toy animals on this particular day.

More Ideas for Outside Nature Play

• Spend some time exploring and learning in the forest.
• Create some flower print art.
• Try making letters with nature.
• Practice measuring outside.

Are you following Inspiration Laboratories on Facebook ? I’d love to connect with you there.  You can also subscribe to posts by e-mail.

Linking up here.