Publisher Description

Turn the backyard into an adventure zone, with playful projects and plans for inspiring kids ages 6 to 10 to explore, imagine, and create their own fun. The backyard has long been a space associated with recreation and relaxation, a private patch of earth to escape to, and a springboard for the imagination. With her signature style and personal experience as a mother, gardener, and author, Amanda Thomsen encourages kids to create kingdoms of their own making, right in their own backyards. With whimsical projects for every season and any setting, forest to pavement, fun-seeking kids and their families will rediscover the yard as a place for inspired play, using repurposed materials and existing features of outdoor spaces. Whether they're creating tiny gardens inhabited by action figures, weaving a secret hideaway out of a loom of twine and twigs, or setting sidewalk cracks on fire with Coffeemate, Backyard Adventure lets kids of all ages turn their yards into a place they can call their own. AGES: 6 to 10 AUTHOR: Amanda Thomsen is the author of Backyard Adventure and Kiss My Aster as well as a mom, a Girl Scout troop leader, a garden maker, an adventure planner, and a rule breaker. She lives in the suburbs of Chicago with her husband and eight-year-old daughter. SELLING POINTS: . Projects and ideas are inexpensive to execute and can be adapted for kids across age ranges. Scavenging and fun suggestions for using materials and settings families already have access to make the ideas in the book easy to modify for kids of different ages, cost-effective, and rich with possibilities. . Allows kids to take the reins. The move toward "free-range parenting" and the proliferation of adventure playgrounds means parents are seeking ways to cultivate children's creativity and confidence. Most of the projects in the book can be carried out by kids, with little to no adult involvement, and all of them are designed to put kids in the driver's seat, encouraging exploration, imagination, and granting permission to play and get messy. . Author with a distinct design sensibility that speaks to kids and fun-loving adults. Author Amanda Thomsen, with her background in professional gardening, combines her quirky style and playful approach to transforming outdoor spaces with her own experiences as a parent. Full-colour; photographs throughout

Back Cover

Permission to Play - Granted! Set kids loose and let their imaginations run wild with inspired ideas for self-directed play. Bolts, buckets, bubble wrap, and other everyday items become the building blocks of free-play fun. Kids are transformed into the independent masterminds of their own mud labs and confident kings and queens of their cardboard castles. Make exploding sidewalk chalk, bang on a wall of noise, fly high in a tire swing, launch amazing science experiments, perform on your own outdoor stage, build a straw bale fort, slip & slide on paint, weave through a yarn lazer maze!

Flap

Permission to Play - Granted! Set kids loose and let their imaginations run wild with inspired ideas for self-directed play. Bolts, buckets, bubble wrap, and other everyday items become the building blocks of free-play fun. Kids are transformed into the independent masterminds of their own mud labs and confident kings and queens of their cardboard castles. Make exploding sidewalk chalk, bang on a wall of noise, fly high in a tire swing, launch amazing science experiments, perform on your own outdoor stage, build a straw bale fort, slip & slide on paint, weave through a yarn lazer maze!

Author Biography

Amanda Thomsen is the author of Backyard Adventure and Kiss My Aster as well as a mom, a Girl Scout troop leader, a garden maker, an adventure planner, and a rule breaker. She lives in the suburbs of Chicago with her husband and eight-year-old daughter.

Table of Contents

The Roots of a Wild Child Chapter 1: Forts and Other Hideaways Scrounging for Unexpected Building Materials Forts & Playhouses Natural Burrows Packing-Material Tepee Plants That Make Great Places to Hide Build a Straw Bale Fort Plant a Living Willow Hideaway Cardboard Castles A Fort in Winter Tunnels The Simple Leaf Pile Make a Loom Tent Badger Holes Unexpected Sandboxes Make a Map of Your Neighborhood Hiding Play Materials Chapter 2: Places for Tinkering Create a Mud Lab Marble Racetrack Soda & Mentos Eruptions Setting Booby Traps Make a Slingshot Build a Catapult Protect Your Toys from Pirates Create a Wall of Noise DIY Rube Goldberg Device Bored? No Way! Chapter 3: Naturally Wild Miniature Worlds Grow a Tiny Fruit Tree Natural Paints & Dyes Grow Your Own Snacks Snacks to Identify & Forage Dig Your Own Clay Mown Labyrinth Logs & Stumps Seedo Torpedoes Drums Chapter 4: Setting Up Camp Backyard Camping (Fake) Neighborhood Lore Make a Hand-Washing Station Create an Outdoor Shower Set Up an Outdoor Toilet Make a Fire Pit Hobo Camp Food & Old-Timey Cooking Outdoor Stages for Performances or Fomenting a Rebellion Chapter 5: Sidewalks, Fences, and Driveways a.k.a. Places to Draw Graffiti on Fences Fun on the Driveway Chalk Outlines Exploding Sidewalk Chalk Chapter 6: Adventure Course Swing It! Make Your Own Slip 'N Slide Tough Lil' Mudders Make Your Own Stilts Red Yarn Laser Climb Cardboard Armor Chapter 7: Water, Bubbles, and Goo Sprinkler Setups Make a Water Blob Super Soaker! Baby Pool Fun Pinata Full of Water Balloons Make Giant Bubbles Tyvek Suit Full of Water Balloons Eggshell Paint Bombs Chapter 8: It Ain't Over Yet Old-Timey Yard Games Turn Dolls into Mummies Duct Tape Zombies Glow Stick Hunt Flashlight Tag Super Secret Section *FOR PARENTS ONLY!*

Review

"Rocket fuel for a free-range childhood." -- Lenore Skenazy, president of Let Grow and founder of Free-Range Kids "Play is the work of childhood and modern kids are play-deficient. Backyard Adventure provides the healthy injection of play all children need. They'll never realize they're learning physics, chemistry, botany, and engineering -- they'll be having too much fun!" -- Katherine Reynolds Lewis, author of The Good News About Bad Behavior: Why Kids Are Less Disciplined Than Ever -- And What to Do About It "Wow, what a treasure trove of ideas and projects. I was laughing and saying aloud, YES, YES, YES! Amanda Thomsen understands that the simplest things in nature are what nurture young souls and spirits. Hurrah!" -- Sharon Lovejoy, Author of Roots, Shoots, Buckets Boots, Sunflower Houses, Camp Granny and many more favorite books for children

Review Quote

"Rocket fuel for a free-range childhood." -- Lenore Skenazy, president of Let Grow and founder of Free-Range Kids "Play is the work of childhood and modern kids are play-deficient. Backyard Adventure provides the healthy injection of play all children need. They'll never realize they're learning physics, chemistry, botany, and engineering -- they'll be having too much fun!" -- Katherine Reynolds Lewis, author of The Good News About Bad Behavior: Why Kids Are Less Disciplined Than Ever -- And What to Do About It "Wow, what a treasure trove of ideas and projects. I was laughing and saying aloud, YES, YES, YES! Amanda Thomsen understands that the simplest things in nature are what nurture young souls and spirits. Hurrah!" -- Sharon Lovejoy, Author of Roots, Shoots, Buckets Boots, Sunflower Houses, Camp Granny and many more favorite books for children

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