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Lavender is a versatile herb with numerous properties beneficial to health, wellness, and everyday life. Its calming aroma, therapeutic benefits, culinary uses, and role in personal care and household products make it a valuable and widely appreciated plant.

Lavender can be grown from seed and is a great sensory ingredient to explore. It attracts pollinators like bees and butterflies, making it a beneficial plant for your garden. Add it to playdough, potions, make lavender perfume or dry it and add sachets to your room indoors to create a beautiful calming scent. Lavender oil has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties, making it useful for treating minor burns, insect bites, and skin irritations. You can also use it in cooking and natural cleaning products. Lavender has a calming effect, relaxing you, aiding sleep and reducing stress and anxiety.

We’ve just got back from a wonderful few days in Sweden. We stayed at a couple of different places; a treehouse on a farm called @traktforesthotel and a water chalet on a lake at a Swedish vineyard. 

We flew Manchester to Gothenburg and then hired a Volvo. 

We took a two hourish drive into the countryside to stay at Trakt Forest Hotel. Along the way we passed so many roadside wildflowers. In particular the foxgloves lining the roads along with the Cow Parsley was very pretty! 

When we arrived at the Trakt Forest Hotel we checked into one of five tree houses built on the farm. These were so peaceful up in the forest and felt very private and not overlooked. There were a number of different experiences you could tag onto your stay. We added the outdoor sauna to ours. You could kayak at a local lake or take a forest bath. They all sounded wonderful but unfortunately time didn’t allow us to do all. 

Our treehouse was beautifully designed and made. With all the interiors created b...

Encouraging children to get outdoors in nature with a fun activity that will keep them engaged.

Create a nature Journal with your children to help them have a better understanding of nature and to encourage them to ask questions about the nature that surrounds them.

Go on a walk to the park, forest, pond, stream, woodland, beach. Use your journal to make notes and draw what you find most interesting. Write down what you see and hear, stick special leaves and flowers that you find in. Draw around leaves and create leaf and bark rubbings on the pages.

Take some watercolours and crayons to use - what colours can you see?  Take this journal with you over the summer holidays to make a record of the adventures you have been on and the nature that you have found. Take it to the beach and draw shells, fish and seabirds. Take it to the pond and sketch the tadpoles, frogs and ducks. Stick any feathers that you find into your journal. Stick in a photo of you collecting natural treasures or j...

A time of coming together with a slower approach

🌼 Midsummer in Sweden: A Celebration of Light, Nature & Togetherness

Midsummer in Sweden is one of the most magical and meaningful times of the year. Falling on June 21st, it marks the summer solstice—a time when the sun barely dips below the horizon. In the northernmost parts of Scandinavia, it doesn’t set at all!

✨ A Tradition Rooted in Magic & Fertility

Going back to the 1500s, Midsummer was seen as a mystical period when fertility levels—of both the land and people—were at their peak. Swedes would decorate the outside of their homes and farms with lush green foliage to honour nature’s bounty and bring good fortune.

As Sweden moved into the industrial age, Midsummer became a special time for community. Mill workers would gather for a hearty feast—pickled herring being the star of the table, a tradition that’s still going strong today!

🌸 Floral Crowns, Maypole Dancing & Feasting

In more recent times, Midsummer has blossomed...

Here are 6 simple and engaging daisy-themed activities for children:

1. Daisy Chains

Collect fresh daisies with long stems. Make a small slit near the base of each stem using your fingernail then thread the next daisy’s stem through the slit and repeat to create a chain.

2. Daisy Painting

Pour a small amount of white, yellow and green paint. Show children how to dip their thumbs in white paint and press them onto paper to create daisy petals. Use a fingertip dipped in yellow paint to make the center of each daisy. Add stalks with green.

3. Daisy Planting

Plant some seeds and look after them until they grow. Ox Eye daisies are a lovely alternative as they are much bigger.

4. Daisy Mud Pies in the Mud Kitchen

Create mud pies and buns in the mud kitchen and decorate with daisies! You could make a daisy potion.

5. Daisy Counting Game

Simply count your daisies on a ten frame or in a line. How many can you count?

6. Daisy Playdough

Add Daisies to your playdough station.

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Young children love to be free and take off their clothes. Yet we can be so quick to cover them up, especially their feet! Children in the UK are often given shoes even before they can walk. 

Being barefoot is so beneficial and we feel so much of the world through our feet. A study in the journal 'Frontiers in Pediatrics' has shown that children who spend most of their time barefoot have increased motor skills and are better in jumping and balancing. 

Many teachers and forest school leaders here in the U.K share their experiences of children lacking in co-ordination and balance when moving around the uneven forest floor. 

When we spend time indoors we are greatly limiting the types of surfaces children learn to walk on and get used to moving around on. These are normally smooth and firm with no roughness or bumps.

When we take our shoes and socks off outdoors we are also connecting our bodies directly to nature which benefits our wellbeing too. Helping our mental health and bring...

I have created a list of over 50 wonderful nature based children's books to support our Rewilding your Wanderlust Child Nature Study.

Do let me know your favourite nature books.

Slow Down: Bring Calm to a Busy World with 50 Nature Stories

Seasons

Watch six breathtaking landscapes transform in front of your eyes in this beautifully illustrated book.

Once Upon a Raindrop: The Story of Water

Footprint

Hooray for Hoppy: A First Book of Senses

The Rhythm of the Rain

Wind (Whatever the Weather)

Snow (Whatever the Weather)

Tree: Seasons Come, Seasons Go

Explore the beauty of the changing seasons in this timeless peek-through book with gorgeous artwork.

The Big Book of Nature Art

From bestselling author Yuval Zommer, The Big Book of Nature Art is packed with twenty-two easy art activities inspired by nature. 

Nature's Treasures: Tales Of More Than 100 Extraordinary Objects From Nature

Nature's Treasures is a stunning nature encyclopedia for young readers ...

Dandelions are beautiful, fascinating plants! Attracting Bees and little hands a like. There is nothing sweeter than blowing a dandelion clock and making a wish! They're known for their bright yellow flowers that turn into fluffy, white seed heads. Despite being considered weeds by many, they have several interesting characteristics. For example, their seeds are dispersed by the wind, which is why you often see them popping up in unexpected places. Additionally, dandelion greens are edible and nutritious, containing vitamins A, C, and K, as well as calcium, iron, and potassium. Some people even use dandelion roots to make tea or coffee alternatives. Overall, they're resilient and adaptable plants that have found their way into folklore, cuisine, and even herbal medicine.

1. Dandelion Biscuits
   
   Baking together is a lovely activity, working together and sharing what you have made.

   

2. Dandelion Playdough
   
   Add dandelions to your homemade playdough mix for a spring dough.
   
   

3. Loose Parts
   
   Wh

   ...