Cloud gazing                            

“As they sailed on, they looked up at the sky and saw the beautiful shapes the clouds had made.” (The Journey Home, Frann Preston-Gannon)

Go into your garden or next time you’re on your walk take a few minutes to gaze up at the sky. What patterns or pictures can you see? Can you make up a story to go with the pictures? Take turns with your grown up, brother or sister. Maybe you could work together to make up a story? (Remember do not look at the sun, it is not good for your eyes!)

Looking after nature

It would not be possible to look after a polar bear, a panda, a orangutan or an elephant in our gardens! I don’t know about you, but I don’t have enough space or food to feed those enormous animals and I certainly don’t want to clean up their poop!

We can easily help the wildlife that do live all around us though and everything we do to help nature and look after our planet is a wonderful thing!

Here are some simple ways to help birds and butterflies that might visit your garden:

Butterfly feeder

You will need:

A bamboo cane or stick

A bottle top from the recycling

Cotton wool

Water and sugar mix  (1 part sugar to 10 parts water)

Paper or card

Draw and colour a big flower that the bottle top can sit in the middle of. If you make it nice and colourful this will help to attract the butterflies. Cut it out. (If you have a laminator you can laminate the flower to make it weather proof– if not, no problem it just wont last as long but you can have the fun of making another one). Stick your bottle top into the middle of the flower using glue or sticky tape. Tape this on to the one end of your stick.

Push the other end of the stick into the ground in a sunny spot.  Put a few drops of sugary water onto the cotton wool and put this in your bottle top. Hopefully you will have some beautiful

butterflies visit your flower to drink some of the sugar water. (Don’t forget to top it up with sugar water when it dries.)

Apple bird feeder

You will need:

· Apple (a bruised one or one that is going soft in the fruit bowl is perfect)

· 3 sticks  

· String

· Scissors

·  Seeds—if you have any.

  (Sunflower seeds are ideal as the bigger size makes them easier to handle.)
Push the longer stick through the apple so that some stick pokes out either side. You need to tie the string on to this stick either side of the apple so that you can hang it up outside. Push the 2 smaller sticks into the apple at opposite sides. These will be where the birds will perch when they visit your feeder. If you have any sunflower seeds use your strong fingers to push them into the apple. An extra yummy treat for the birds.

Once you’ve found the perfect spot outside, hang it up. Preferably where you can see from your window then you can watch the birds without scaring them away.