Creating Simple Outdoor Spaces for Kids

Written by Jenn @ A Simple Haven, Contributing Writer

Here in my Midwestern farm town, it’s only Spring according to the calendar. Go outside and you’re confronted by cold, rain, and 45mph winds that supposedly bring warm air up from the south but have yet to bring me anything except damage to my front porch accessories.

But I can see my bulbs poking through and so I trust that someday, spring will come in all of its glory. Until then, I sit in my cozy living room, pinning pictures of beautiful outdoor spaces and dreaming of warmer days.

It’s doubtful that my nondescript, treeless backyard will ever look remotely like the images I pin, but it’s fun to dream. And to see what I can adapt to real life, on a real budget.

Here are some favorite ideas I hope to translate to reality this spring. Some require more construction than others but the end goal of all is cultivating beauty or joy in my little backyard.

Simple Outdoor Ideas for Kids:

The Sandbox

Photo via Young House Love

While enjoying a lovely beach vacation last summer, I became convinced that sand is magical: it occupies my (very active) children for hours.
A mound of sand is deceptively simple. But with plastic gardening tools, measuring cups, buckets, bowls, random kitchen utensils, and some imagination? Cities, castles, feasts, and sculptures can be made.

Thoughts on sandbox construction: The easiest route? A plastic baby pool filled with sand. Or something like this.

Making a more permanent fixture? Consider including: benches/seats for sitting, storage for toys, and some kind of cover if animals are prone to traipse through your yard.

You could simply use a tarp or build wooden covers like this or this. Rumor has it sprinkling cinnamon in the sand keeps pests away, but I’m not brave enough to rely on it in the face of an outdoor cat.

The Fairy Garden

Where oh where have these been all of my life? For someone who wishes she lived in Narnia, you’d think I’d have constructed five of these by now.

Turns out there’s a whole section of Hobby Lobby dedicated to them. But woe to the buyer who shops without coupons, sales, or funds from Grammie: fairy garden accessories aren’t cheap, yo.

As Grammie happened to be visiting this week, my (ahem, my daughter’s) first fairy garden is now prominently displayed on our front porch.

Thoughts on construction: Depending on the age of the fairy garden recipient, choose durable features. I’m already repairing a tiny wooden bird house and I’m pretty sure the ceramic frog’s days are numbered. I expect greater longevity from the metal bird and garden bench.

Also, consider using found objects—a bird’s nest and rocks from your yard, a plant that is languishing inside, twigs and leaves to make a fence and simple fairy house.

The Water Table/Wall

While I’m a big fan of our indoor “water table,” I look forward to the days when my kids can play with water outside.

You can buy actual water tables, obviously, but we just fill up the baby pool and toss in various measuring cups, spoons, bowls, medicine droppers, and my daughter’s plastic tea set.

Also new to me?

The water wall. Come warmer weather, I’m so making one of these.

The Garden

(To distinguish it from the fairy kind, this is the type in which you grow food).

Last year my first garden yielded little, but I’m choosing to believe that was due to poor placement (in a bog-like section of my yard) and am giving it another go in a different spot.

My kids enjoyed watering and picking our meager crops last summer but I’m excited to involve them more in the process of planning and planting this year.

I may even give them their own little pots of veggies to tend in hopes of increasing their interest at dinnertime. But I won’t hold my breath.

A Birdfeeder

While clearly not an interactive play feature, a bird feeder in a spot visible from a child-height window can provide a fun nature show on a wet spring day.

Grab an Audubon book or Google and try to identify the birds with your kids. So far, we’ve seen finches, mourning doves, and robins. Only they’ve been renamed “Julia,” “Mud-brown,” and “baby Sam.”