At OMO, we believe that every stain represents an important experience - mud stains are the stamp of adventure, grass stains are the sign of exploration and fruit stains are the aftermath of discovery. Encourage your kids to get messy with our fun activities for happy, healthy, confident kids. We'll be there to sort out the dirty clothes afterwards.
Crazy Camouflage
Your child will have a blast playing hide-and-seek while camouflaged as a bush.
What you’ll need:
What to do:
This is a great activity to do when the garden needs a bit of tidying up as the more leaves and small branches you have the more fun your child will have creating camouflage. Measure pieces of strings long enough to go around your child’s waist, wrists and ankles. Show your child how to take their leaves and small branches and tie them to the pieces of string or pierce a hole in each leaf to put the string through. If they have a hat or cap, they can attach leaves to that, or put leaves in their hair. Encourage them to dirty their faces and hands with the sand. Explain that they are disguising themselves as a bush or flower bed so that they can hide. Talk to your child about how birds, animals and insects use camouflage to protect them from predators in nature.
Tie the camouflage strings around your child’s waist, ankles and wrists and help them to tuck any extra leaves, branches or flowers into their clothes and hair.
Now cover your eyes while your child finds a hiding place in the garden, trying to ‘blend in’ to the background in their camouflage. Count to ten then have some fun pretending to almost step on them or walk into them due to their excellent camouflage.
Alternative Materials:
Change it up:
Make it easy: Prepare the ankle, waist and wrist camouflage in advance and then let your child add extra leaves by tucking them in to the wrist and waist bands and into their clothes.
Make it a challenge: Encourage your child to create all the camouflage themselves and challenge them to try and match a specific patch of garden.
Play with friends: Children can take it in turns to be camouflaged and hidden or to be the seeker/s.
Indoor play: You can create leaves out of coloured or painted paper to play indoors or challenge your child to use clothing and fabric to camouflage themselves against an inside background.
Developmental areas:
Gross motor skills
Fine motor skills
Visual perception
Concepts – colour matching
Values instilled
Empathy; love of nature; curiosity.