Nature craft: making natural noughts and crosses

I always look forward to the kids being at home more in the school holidays, and this year I’m absolutely loving the extra time it’s giving us for crafting.  There’s a four and a half year age gap between my kids, and I find nature crafts one of the best ways to get them inspired and absorbed by the same activity.

We’re having our bathroom re-fitted at the moment, and we’ve been a bit tied to the house while the workmen do their stuff.  So we thought we’d try a nature craft in our garden to keep things simple, and had a go at making noughts and crosses – or tic tac toe – from natural materials.

First of all, we had a chat about what we might use.  We worked out that we’d need some straight things to make the grid and the crosses, and some round things to make the noughts – so lots of discussion followed about shapes in nature.  We also talked about how many of each we’d need, and how we might make the grid stay together.  We ended up doing quite a bit of maths actually!

Next, the kids went on a hunt around the garden to see what they could find that was straight or round.  Sticks and twigs were the obvious choice for the straights, but found lots of options for the noughts – including the flower heads from the garlic I’ve just harvested!

Once we had our materials assembled, it was all hands on deck to tie the grid and crosses together with string, and we were done.  What do you think of our natural noughts and crosses?

Obviously, once you’ve made your game you can then play with it, so I had a cuppa in the sunshine and watched the kids play their first tournament.

This noughts and crosses nature craft is perfect for when you really want to get outside with the kids, but don’t have much time to prepare.  We slotted it into half an hour, and now we have a great outdoor game that the kids can play over and over again.  Do you think you’ll be giving it a try?

For lots more nature craft ideas, check out the ‘Naturally Crafty’ nature craft linky which I co-host with Becky from Simple Parenting, it’s a great place to find lots of inspiration.