What to do in your den

So now you've built your den you can sit back and relax, but only for a minute! We've lots of activities and challenges you can carry out with your friends in your den.

The activities here will change as the seasons change. There are always fun things to do outside whatever the weather. It may rain, but who cares so long as you’ve got a rain coat and some wellies?

A. Wild Play - great games to play outside

Camouflage ‘hide and seek’

1. Get a gang of friends and family together.

2. Practise hiding and get to know the area first by playing simple Hide and Seek.

3. To play camouflage hide and seek
• Everybody first chooses their hiding place (keep it secret!).
• Use face paints or make masks to create a camouflage for your place.
• If making masks, start with a paper plate. Colour it using mud, or rubbed in greens from leaves. Use a stapler to attach leaves, ferns, twigs… whatever required in order to ‘blend in’. Use elastic to create the mask.
• The seeker hides their eyes while the hiders place themselves so that their faces are visible. The seeker then seeks the creatures.

B. Wild Art - creative ideas from natural things

1. Colour explosion

Bracelet or crown

• Cut a strip about 3cm wide from a piece of A4 card (you will need to stick two of these together for a longer length if you are making a crown). Stick a line of double sided sticky tape down the middle.
• Look closely at everything – the inside of flowers might have amazing stripes and spots, the underside of leaves may be a different colour to the topside. Gradually peel off the tape and stick on tiny pieces of leaf, petals, and stems. Add feathers, berries, stones…
• Wear with pride.

Window art

Use clear plastic strips (from an OHP transparency or a clear plastic water bottle) to do the same activity. They made wonderful window decorations or can be used to make hanging mobiles.

If you've got a digital camera, take a picture of your creation. It’s great to compare the photo with the real thing and watch as the colours fade and change.

This is also a brilliant activity to do as the seasons change. Visit the same spot and make a new ‘Colour Explosion’. Compare your colours through spring, summer, autumn and winter.

C. Wild Life - Ideas for attracting and investigating wildlife

1. Bird Hide

• Make a bird feeder out of recycled materials (clear plastic water bottles are great).
• Fill it with peanuts or wild bird seed.
• Hang it in the garden and leave it for a day or two to be found.

You could also make a camouflaged bird hide (a den) out of sheets, pegs, blankets… watch what comes to visit, and have a groovy time hanging out in the den.

2. Sound symphony

• Find a good spot somewhere where you might hear some natural sounds.
• Take a blank piece of card (post card size) and a pencil.
• Make yourself comfortable so that you can sit silently for a while. Mark a cross in the middle of the card – that’s you.
• Draw the shapes of the sounds you can hear around you (not the things that you imagine made the sound). You’ll notice that the longer you sit silently, the more you can hear.

This is another activity that’s good to do as the seasons change and different visitors make themselves heard.

Complete our "Can you find the password" challenge

Find the password to E-den in the map inside the leaflet below and you could win dinner for your family in our Med Kitchen restaurant, if you come on one of the days we’re open late.

The seven letters to the password are hidden in the map. Once you’ve found them, use them to create the E-den password, write it on the form on the leaflet and hand in at the Membership desk, Jo’s Café, or the Information Desk. We’ll announce the winner on the tannoy system at 5pm on each of our summer late nights.

Download PDF Dens Leaflet

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