Anyone wanting a quiet walk on that blustery autumn afternoon would have been in for a bit of a shock. The woods rang out with the excited shrieks and crazy laughter of five elaborately decorated young warriors. Armed with sticks, they were ready to defend their territory to the bitter end and alarm innocent passers by with their scary painted faces. This was a real adventure, an escape into a world of stories and dreams, all made possible by a bit of crushed chalk. Only an hour earlier those same young people had been sprawled in front of the television, squabbling over the computer and refusing to budge off the sofa. How could we ever tempt them away and channel all that pent-up energy into something positive? We grabbed a pestle and mortar, a few paintbrushes and a bottle of water, and dragged everybody off to the woods. We easily gathered some chalk from upturned tree roots and before long everyone was bashing and grinding it into a fine powder, and then mixing it into a smooth white paste with a little water. Stripping off their T-shirts - no one complained about the cold - the children decorated their faces, arms and even bodies with intricate patterns and pictures inspired by Aboriginal designs. With no further prompting they had become transformed into imaginary characters and were dashing off into the woods. A rather dull half-term afternoon had become a memorable experience. We believe in letting the wild world weave its magic on young people. Wild places have a unique capacity to release a sense of adventure, stimulate imaginations, unleash creativity and restore a sense of wonder. Our families have wiled away many hours in local woods, distant mountains and back gardens. We have invented games, made weird and wonderful sculptures, raced miniature leaf boats down streams and collected natural treasures to turn into keepsakes. Make it Wild draws on these experiences, with the aim of inspiring young people to get off their backsides, forget about their image, leave commercial toys and games behind for a while and go in search of some inexpensive entertainment in the great outdoors. The wild world is packed to the brim with endless possibilities for play, creativity and discovery. After a two-hour walk to a remote Hebridean beach where there wasn't a plastic beach toy or electronic game in sight, everyone was forced to search around for something to do. Sitting idly trickling dry sand between her fingers, Hannah began to experiment. Placing one hand down flat on the smooth damp sand, she poured dry sand all around it and revealed, when she lifted up her hand, a perfect silhouette. Soon everyone joined in, producing a scene reminiscent of ancient cave paintings created by spitting mouthfuls of paint around hands placed on the rock walls. Suddenly that wild and empty beach had become a place full of exciting new ideas. In this fast-moving, quick-fix modern world of over-packaged, branded toys, in which many children expect to have their needs met immediately, nature helps us all slow down a little and realize that less is often more. Make it Wild is about looking at what nature has to offer in a new light. It's about appreciating the potential of diverse raw materials such as snow, leaves, chalk and sticks and learning how to work with them. It's about discovering how to use nature's free, renewable resources to make anything from a cricket bat or a clay monster to an ice lantern or costumes for an outdoor play. (And for those parents and carers who shudder at the thought of messy craft activities in their tidy house - take heart, and just get everyone outdoors! Connie and Sophie knew they could slop this elderberry juice around as much as they liked because outdoors is the perfect place to be messy!) Such activities may take a long time, and they may be difficult; but we have found that young people value the finished products all the more for having made them themselves and feel a sense of pride in the achievement. Outdoor crafts can also show children that technology is not just about pressing the keys on a keyboard but can be about making something that is practical and useful, like a home-made go-cart on which you can whizz downhill or a carved wooden spoon that you can cook with. They bring young people closer to nature and some, like the spoon, have ancient and primitive origins too. Outdoor experiences also offer young people time and space for exploration, for learning by mistakes and for working together. Making things outdoors involves solving practical problems, seeing a process through from start to finish, using potentially dangerous tools - all of which help children acquire the skills they need to cope with the world and develop a common-sense understanding of the way it works. Group activities such as a family boat-making competition or gathering round a fire telling scary stories can take them away from the solitary virtual world of networking and surfing and help nurture real connections with family and friends. We believe that everyone has buried desires to reconnect with nature and discover wildness; and we know from experience that once young people are out there they will come up with all sorts of ingenious ideas and have a great time. But the hardest part is getting them out of the door. How do you tempt young people to get outside? One solution, we have found, is to remove barriers - by making time for outdoor play and putting it higher up the priority list. Another lies in making experiences in the natural world as exciting, challenging, varied and inspiring as possible. In Make it Wild we offer diverse ways to do this, in the hope that it might make it easier to encourage children to get outdoors and have fun. Of course today's young people must grow up with an understanding and appreciation of modern technology, but an ever-increasing reliance on multi-channel TV and computers encourages passive indoor lifestyles. A downside of a culture that bombards us with commercial messages promoting the acquisition of the latest toys, fashions and gadgets is that it suggests that happiness depends on these things; and it is a wasteful one too, where the art of making things is in danger of being lost. We hope that Make it Wild will redress the balance and help reunite young people with the natural world in all its vitality, its freedom, its opportunities, its intensity and its inspiration. Perhaps it will encourage everyone to discover their inner wildness. We hope that it might also help the next generation develop valuable life skills and forge a deeper link with wild places, for if they come to value everything that such places have to offer they will surely want to protect them for future generations. Excerpted from Make It Wild!: 101 Things to Make and Do Outdoors by Fiona Danks, Jo Schofield All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
