BBQs, birdsong and freezer roulette: Half term ideas for nature-loving families

Since leaving my career in education, where life revolved around the academic calendar, I now find myself on the opposite end of the spectrum. School holidays sneak up on me unexpectedly, and I’m suddenly reminded I’ve got two small humans to keep entertained. The realisation of having to juggle the day job but also spending quality time with the family is a conundrum many will be all too familiar with.

Given you’re reading this, it suggests you’re probably already supportive of the ‘outdoor play is best’ ethos, but given the pace, convenience and requirements of daily life the reality is TV streaming channels, tablets and phones are now unavoidable for young people. A 2021 study found that children aged 5–16 spend an average of 6 hours and 20 minutes per day on screens, while only clocking about 4 hours a week playing outside – half the time the previous generation did.

I may sound like a technophobe, but I’m really not. In fact, integrating technology into outdoor play can be both exciting and educational. There are tonnes of brilliant apps which can help with building their knowledge and species identification skills and one which I use a lot with my kids is the Merlin Bird ID app. You may have come across it before, but if you haven’t, it’s a clever bit of software which allows you to ‘listen’ to numerous birds singing at once and it will automatically identify the species for you.