Outdoor activities to wean your child off social media

Three quarters of children spend less time outdoors than prisoners in UK jails. A fifth don't spend any time outdoors at all on an average day.

One tenth have never been to a beach, wood, a park or any other natural space for over a year.

The Children’s Commissioner recently said that children are bingeing on social media like junk food.

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Being outdoors is good for kids’ mental and physical health. It can help them learn, develop, make friends, become independent, feed their curiosity and fire their imagination. Being active helps to prevent obesity and improve children’s wellbeing.

Digital technology is always calling, but we have to make the effort to get our kids outside.

You might worry that out of sight is full of danger, or maybe you are unsure about what we can do with our children outdoors, but help is at hand! We want every child to have the opportunity to get outdoors and let nature into their lives, and we can help you to give your children a really wild summer that they will never forget.

Thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery, we’ve been able to team up with a range of partners to launch Play Wild, a project to give parents the confidence and ideas to get their children outdoors and playing in nature.

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Have a look at www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/playwild for ideas about wild places to go and things to do when you get there.

If you’d like a bit of a helping hand to ease you into the wild, then we’ve got loads of events across the holidays.

My Wild Summer: Wild Wednesdays at Carsington are full of wild play activities, crafts and trails for families to join in with together. There are different activities each week, from pond dipping and den building to camp fire cooking so they won’t have time to get bored!

Matlock Bath is home to the Whistlestop Discovery Centre, and Wild Play Fridays. Each Friday throughout the holidays we’ll be investigating different aspects of nature from Mysterious Mini Worlds to Marvellous Mammals, with accompanying activities and crafts to keep young hands busy.

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We have a summer school with a difference up at Hope. Explore the woods in our Family Forest School sessions with a wide range of woodland activities. These have been subsidised by Hope Cement so sessions are half the normal price!

If you’d like to get even closer to nature, celebrate the end of our Wild Summer at Carsington by joining us for a bat walk! We’ll go batty with crafts in the classroom before heading out into the night with bat detectors.

You can find out more about these and all our events on our website www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/whatson

l What outdoor fun is your child having this summer holidays? Email your comments and photos to: 
[email protected]

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