Spring is the perfect time to get your family outdoors and enjoying the warmer weather. The cleaning professionals at MOLLY MAID recommend activities to help your family celebrate the new spring season.
Underwater Explorer
Ponds are a great place for children to discover fascinating creatures such as tadpoles, frogs, crayfish and snails.
How to:
Bring a small net or bucket to an area of the pond where plants are present. Lower the net into the soil of the pond’s floor and gently raise it out of the water. Examine your findings by placing any creatures into a small plastic container filled with pond water. When you’ve finished your examination, gently return the creatures to their home.
Footprint Tracking
While many animals such as squirrels, birds and rabbits make your garden their home during the day, others only come out at night. This footprint tracking ‘trap’ let’s your children investigate which animals visit your garden after dark.
How to:
Place a folded white sheet in an area of your garden where animals are most likely to visit such as near a hedge or vegetable plant. Cut up small pieces of fruit, bread and carrots and place them in the centre of your sheet. Cover the ends of your sheet with dirt to disguise it. Next, wet the sheet and surrounding soil with water and leave it overnight. The next morning, check your footprint tracking trap to see if any animals have eaten the food. Examine the tracks on your sheet and see if you can identify the animals that left them. Reset your trap in other spots around the garden to see if you can discover other animals.
Bug Hotel
Get to know some of your smallest neighbours by observing them up close in your very own man-made habitat.
How to:
Cut three or four 2-inch-square openings around the top of an empty carton. Wrap duct tape around the edges of the openings to make them stronger. Bury a small plastic cup in a vegetable garden or flowerbed so that the top is level with the ground. Place the carton over the cup to protect it from rain. Weigh down the carton with a small stone, and leave it overnight. In the morning, check the cup for any insects. Make sure to return the insects to the garden once you have finished observing them. To entice more bugs to your habitat, place tiny bits of fruit in the bottom of your cup.
Calling All Worms
This simple technique will unearth some surprising results!
How to:
Find an area of loose, slightly moist soil and push a 12 to 18-inch stick 2 to 3 inches into the ground. Take a second stick and rub it from side to side against the stick in the soil for 2 minutes. Watch to see if any worms wriggle to the surface. Try several areas in the garden to see which one works best. Keep an eye out for baby worms, which are in abundance this time of year.
