Set Up a Kid Friendly Backyard for Active Play

I’ve been working on making the backyard at our new house enticing for the whole family, but especially turning it into a place where the kids want to play. Until recently, it was a blank slate—flat lawn and nothing else—that my daughters rarely wanted to use and that I found depressing to even look at. So I’ve been chipping away at my goal of making a kid friendly backyard bit by bit over the past couple of months or so.

I started by defining garden areas, including borders, a vegetable garden, and a flower island. Then, I sat down and thought of all the components that can make a yard fun and appealing to children.

I wanted to incorporate elements that made kids want to go outside and play.

Because we all know how important play is, right?!

Mister Rogers got it right when he said that play is the work of childhood.

In this post, I’ll share my kid friendly backyard ideas, as well as our progress and what we’ve incorporated so far, such as sand and water play areas, attractive garden “rooms” for comfort and privacy, wildlife, and fun outdoor toys and activities. Please feel free to add a comment below with your own ideas and anything that has worked well for your family.

As I was starting this process, Melissa & Doug expressed interest in sponsoring a few blog posts on The Artful Parent and so I proposed that they sponsor this post on creating a kid-friendly backyard. So a big thank you to Melissa & Doug for sponsoring this post and for sending us a number of their products for free to try out (at my request). As always, all opinions expressed are my own.

Set Up a Kid Friendly Backyard :: 11 Elements that Encourage Active Outdoor Play

As you consider your own backyard, think about which aspects you already have, which ones might need an update, and which details you would like to add. Don’t think you have to incorporate all of these to get your kids outside to play! Simply use these ideas as a starting point as you think about making your own outdoor space more kid-friendly (even if it’s simply a balcony!).

Create Backyard “Rooms” for Comfort & Privacy

Give kids a feeling of privacy and intimacy for their play. Your yard may already provide this with nooks, corners, or trees (think a weeping willow hanging down to create a secret room or a climbing tree for older kids). But you can also create “rooms” by adding shrubs or trees, a trellis, an umbrella or canopy, or some sort of fort or hideaway. Some ideas ::

• Bean pole teepee (We’ve often had a bean pole teepee in the past and the kids are asking for one again this year.)
• Fabric teepee
• Sunflower house (on Let’s Lasso the Moon)
• Play house
• Old tent
• Umbrella
• Shade canopy

Backyard Sand Play

A place to dig in the sand (or dirt), mold it, build with it, and feel it is an important element of a kid friendly backyard. Sand is both a wonderful sensory experience and fun to manipulate. The sand box has been one of my kids’ very favorite places to play in the past and we recently built an easy and attractive natural sand pit in our new backyard. You can buy or build your own sand box, sand pit, or sand table and outfit it with a few basic sand toys, such as ::

• Shovels or scoops
• Molds (these sandblox are fun)
• Buckets (we’ve been using these nesting pails)
• Construction vehicles
• Funnels

Backyard Water Play

Water is another fun sensory experience for children, especially in warm weather. My kids love to run through a sprinkler on a hot day, play with water balloons, splash in the kiddie pool, and even water the garden. Other ways you can bring a water element into the garden ::

• A water fountain
• A water table (for the littles)
• A stream or pond (I wish!)
• Tricycle car wash (on Design Mom)
• DIY water wall (on Tinkerlab)

Outdoor Art & Creativity for a Kid Friendly Backyard

You know I’m all about the art, whether inside or out. Sometimes we do art outside, just because it’s so nice out and anything we do needs to be outside. And sometimes we do outdoor art activities that are best suited to the backyard, because they are big or messy projects or they involve nature or outdoor equipment.

We have kept the kids’ easel on our covered porch for extended periods in the warmer months, and we sometimes take the easel to the backyard for a big en plein air painting experience or just a change of scenery. The nice thing about outdoor art is that you don’t need to worry about paint dribbles and splashes! Plus the paintings can be hung to dry on a clothesline or fence… (Just remember to take the easel inside if it rains!)

Chalk, Chalk, Chalk

Sidewalk chalk is a childhood staple and is used for everything from sidewalk drawings and body tracings to games such as tic-tac-toe and hopscotch. Since chalk washes away easily with a rain or the hose, kids can draw with it many places including rocks, fences, wood structures, cement, sidewalks, etc. You can even make a DIY chalkboard by painting a large piece of wood with chalkboard paint and mounting it on a fence or the side of the house.

A Kids’ Garden

Any kind of garden that a child has ownership of is wonderful, but a vegetable garden is especially good. A garden is magical (something is growing from a seed!), a learning experience, and an exercise in responsibility all at once. I encourage any parent to give their children their own garden space, whether in a pot or a small plot in the ground, and the support to help make it a success.

Some easy, kid friendly plants include strawberries, peas, carrots, radishes, cherry tomatoes, and beans. My daughters don’t like to eat all of those (yet) but they love to grow and harvest them. For more ideas for gardening with kids, check out Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots by Sharon Lovejoy or The Gardening Classroom by Cathy James.

Some children’s gardening tools to consider ::

• Trowel
• Child-sized watering can
• Bucket
• Child-sized wheelbarrow
• A small shovel

Attract Birds and Butterflies

My kids and I LOVE watching the birds, hummingbirds, and butterflies in our garden. You can make your garden friendly to wildlife by planting native flowers, shrubs, and trees around the perimeter of your yard to provide shelter and food. Add bird feeders, a bird bath, and bird houses as well, if you can. We’ve painted bird houses in the past and this year assembled our own from kits.

A whole new world has opened up to us with our loupes! Stronger and better than magnifying glasses, yet small enough to carry in our pocket, we look at the details of life in our backyard and on hikes.

A photo posted by Jean Van’t Hul | Artful Parent (@jeanvanthul) on Apr 16, 2016 at 2:22pm PDT

Backyard Observation Kit

Treat your backyard like a natural science lab by having a few key observation tools handy. Butterfly nets can be used for catching butterflies, moths, and flying insects. A jar with holes in the lid or a netted cage can be a temporary insect observation room. A magnifying glass is helpful for looking closely at your subject. A set of binoculars allows you to watch larger bird and animal life more carefully. We’ve recently been introduced to loupes as well, which are incredible for seeing tiny details—pollen on flowers, hairs on insects, veins in flowers and leaves, etc.

Bubbles

This is a no brainer. Bubbles are magical and fun for most children. They also arguably provide the biggest bang for the buck when creating a kid friendly backyard. We’ve tried all kinds of wands, machines, and bubbles and they are all a big hit. My kids especially like the larger multi-bubble wands (such as these bubble wands by Melissa & Doug) and a never-ending supply of homemade bubble solution in a pie dish or shallow bowl (it’s easy and cheap to make a big batch).

Backyard Toys

Basic childhood toys, such as balls, hula hoops, jump ropes, and stilts, are great for simple, active fun. One of our new favorites, though, is a set of these activity cones which are fabulous for open-ended play as they can be used so many different ways. My kids and their friends love to use them for obstacle courses, made-up games, and races.

Backyard Swings 

Swings are fun and soothing, great for developing equilibrium and balance, and a superb way to be active. The swing set at my old house (a big wooden DIY affair) got more use over the years than anything else in our backyard, even the much-loved sand box. If you have space for a swing set or a tree swing, it can be a worthwhile addition. We don’t currently have a swing, but are lucky enough to have wonderful neighbors with one that they let my kids use.

How about you? What are your family’s favorite kid friendly backyard ideas? What do you have in place that’s working well for you? And what would you like to add to make your outdoor space more inviting and workable? Any other ideas to add to this list?

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Disclaimer :: This post on creating a kid friendly backyard was sponsored by Melissa & Doug, who also sent me a number of their products for free to try out. As always, all opinions expressed are my own.