I tend to write lots of posts about the books and resources that we use but one area I probably don’t talk about that much is our garden. It is such a sanctuary for the kids.

Last year when we cut down a dead tree we cut the branches into some small logs and stacked them at the back of our garden. Our back garden joins up to our neighbour who has a wonderful garden filled with flowers, a pond and lots of creatures. We knew some of his frogs liked to wander into our garden so we hoped the log pile might become a second home for a few of them. And it did.

We also bought some wild flower seeds and scattered them in some old sad looking flower beds.

The flowers bloomed. And the insects love them.

The combination of our little log pile and the wild flowers (together with on existing apple tree, my strawberries which the squirrel loves stealing) has meant we have had more creatures visiting our garden than ever before. The frogs love it, bees, butterflies lots of insects, squirrels, bird life – we have a robin that had been named Bertie, a family of magpies, a very cheeky pigeon that does not understand personal boundaries, a family of woodpeckers, foxes that sneak in at night oh and just spotted a slow worm. I am sure I am forgetting a bunch of others but these creatures are providing both kids with an amazing learning environment. The hours they spend in the garden, watching, catching insects to examine them up close – and even a few small bites have not put them off. They love it.

I love seeing how connected both kids are with our little garden creatures. They noticed when the bees did not appear during 2 very hot days, the immediately spotted when a fledgling got stranded – they kept their distance and watched as one of the parents came to help.

Yes I buy books and other learning resources and I will continue to do that, but the £3 we spent buying wild flower seeds and the time we took to cut the branches and turn them into a log pile are two of the best money/time spent activities.