Random Acts of Momness: How to Have Fun in the Great Outdoors--Without Any Special Equipment!

Growing up, an excursion into the "mountains," was always a blast. We kids rarely brought any special equipment in order to have fun. With tadpole catching, rock hopping, and exploring, no extras were needed. The other day, Brian, Thomas, Katrina and I went off on a mountain adventure. The boys had fishing poles and licenses, Katrina and I had nothing. Nothing except our own sense of fun, that is! Here are some of the things we did.

1. Press Wild Flowers.

You have to be careful with this one. Only pick where its legal, and pick responsibly. In our case, we only picked 3 blossoms of each kind of flower--One each for me and Katrina and one for Miriam.

How to Press Wildflowers

You will need;
A Book. In our case, we used a copy of the Book of Mormon because we always have in the car since we read from it every night as a family. It comes in handy when we are coming home late at night to read it in the car on the way home.
Well, that's all you need.

How to do it:
Place the flowers face down on a page of the book. Close a few pages over the flowers. Find more flowers. Place them on a new page. Close a few pages over these flowers. Continue till you are done. When you get home, Place heavier books on top of the book of flowers and leave for a couple of weeks or until the flowers are dry.

We plan to make greeting cards or paper with our wild flowers.

2. Skip Rocks.

Thomas Shows us How its Done.

We had lots of fun doing this. I skipped a rock the farthest, but Katrina skipped one rock the most times--4+ skips. This is a fun activity that takes nothing but thin, round rocks and a body of water.

How to Skip Rocks

Here are two videos on how to skip rocks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLmBk5hka5U This guy is pretty good, but he fails to mention that you need to put a spin on your rock as you throw it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btx-phyFLSA This guy also does a good job but fails to mention that you want to try to throw the stone almost parallel with the surface of the water.
If you invest less than 4 minutes to watch both these videos, you will get a great lesson on how to skip a rock!

3, Flick a Old-Style Pop Can Pull Ring.

If you are so fortunate as to find the right kind of old pop can ring, you have an instant toy!

How to Flick a Soda Pop Can Pull Ring

Your ring must look like this:

Two slots.

You will also need the other part of the pop can "tab"--the part that covered the opening of the can.

Now, hold the ring horizontally in one hand and the tab vertically in the other hand. The ring has two slots. Insert the wide part of the tab into the slot of the ring that is farthest away from you. Now, pull back gently on the ring and release.

With a bit of practice you will get the ring spinning through the air. Have contests to see who can spin it the farthest.

4. Make a Fairy House.

How To Make an Outdoors Fairy House

You can make Fairy Houses out of leaves, sticks, rocks...Katrina and I made ours out of mud and pieces of bark that we found laying on the ground. We made a house, a fence, and a garden. Katrina even carved a sign.