Nature Adventures with a Toddler (and beyond!) – Brilliant Boggarts

Boggarts are magical creatures that lurk in all kinds of unusual places. Since lockdown, they've become a more common garden visitor as sightings across Sheffield and Rotherham continue to rise. Bring a ball of clay to life with some foraged items and create your very own Boggart.

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Join me on my quest to keep a toddler entertained in my garden and home, with nature as our inspiration, and with fun (and a bit of learning!) as our goal. My 2 and ½ year old will test out these simple and easy-to-do-at-home activities; we’ll let you know the results, and would love to hear how you get on, too. I’ll offer some Outdoor Learning Top Tips on how to adapt the activities for older children, and suggest what skills each activity helps you and your child explore. All the activities are simple, use mostly things you will find in and around your home, and will be free, and will hopefully help to keep you both entertained (and sane!) a they have done for me. Enjoy!

Brilliant Boggarts

Boggarts are magical creatures that lurk in all kinds of unusual places. Since lockdown, they’ve become a more common garden visitor as sightings across Sheffield and Rotherham continue to rise. Bring a ball of clay to life with some foraged items and create your very own Boggart. Make your Boggart extra special by giving it a super power!
Skills:

Creativity
Imagination
Dexterity
Active Play

What you’ll need:

  • We used air dry clay, but you can also use heavy mud, play dough, plastecine, and anything else that can easily be moulded into a shape.
  • Anything you can find to decorate your boggart – leaves, stickes, grass… the list is endless.
  • Boggarts are known for their love of nature and abilities to protect it – to make sure your boggart is happy, use only biodegradable things if it is to be left somewhere for others to find 🙂

Top tips (and what we learnt along the way):

  • For younger ones, make one or two together to give them the idea of the activity.
  • Leave your boggart somewhere you’ll pass by every day – perhaps the garden gate, or even out on your local exercise route for others to spot too!
  • We told some of our neighbours about boggarts, and they had a go too – it was great fun trying to spot other people’s boggarts around the estate!

Oscar’s review:

For the first few boggarts we made (we have a whole herd here!) Oscar took great satisfaction in giving me instructions on how to make the boggarts, and finding things for me to stick on them, rather than making them himself. He still really enjoyed it (as did I!) and points them out every time we pass by them. He now confidently makes his own and gives them names – definitely an activity we regularly return to.

For older ones –

  • Can you recreate an animal? Or perhaps even an animal hybrid! Your boggart might have the jumping legs of a kangaroo, the ears of an elephant, and perhaps the neck of a giraffe!? The possibilities are endless.
  • Tell a story about your boggart. Do they have any special adaptations? What is their preferred habitat and why? Their diet?

Thank you to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for support with this content.