50 things to do before you're 11 3/4

If you have young children, this is really good to get them outside and its organised by the National Trust...:

https://www.50things.org.uk/

If the child registers on the site, it opens up 'badges' they can collect and this encourages them to do more outdoor activities to get more badges...  and so on...

I think its a really good initiative... 

We're just starting it...     anyone here being doing it for a while..?

great idea, but isnt it a shame that children these days need incentives to do these things, whereas when some of us were young, we probably did most of these without any encouragement! I just looked at the 'some of the 50 things' list, and apart from the abseiling and geocache, I did all of them!

Yes..   but the reality is that we didn't have access to technology then... 

It has sparked an interest in my kids and we'll probably try to get through lots of them over the summer holidays...

and probably better off without it!

Oh don't get me wrong, I think its a good thing, it just makes you think how different things are these days
("I remember when all this was fields. . . . .")

I haven't seen the list but I believe that one of them is to go swimming in a river.

A group of us are currently in discussion with the NT as they are trying to stop us from swimming in a river that passes through their land.  We do not set foot on their land at all so we are not trespassing, and the river passes through meadows so we are not getting access to any of their beautiful properties or gardens.  We honestly don't understand what they have got against us, even after 6 months of meetings with them.

It's a nice list and anything that gets families out together and encourages kids to be active is a good thing.  There's a few things there I haven't done in my 42 years.

I do have a bit of an issue with the NT though, and Caz's experience highlights it.  They sometimes forget their remit and overstep themselves.  Don't get me started on their parking charges for access to common land - grrrrrr.

Having said that though, this sort of thing is great.

At 10 and almost 12 my two have (I'm pretty sure) managed 49 of the 50 activities listed: they haven't, to my knowledge, set up a snail race (although they've certainly collected a few). I will now put the thought in their heads.

Climbing trees, rope swings etc is very much part of their daily life. In fact they found their first geocache by accident while climbing a tree to improve a rope swing  I didn't even know what it was then but when they discribed it my husband told us about geocache.

I think it's a bit too easy to blame technology for keeping kids indoors: my two have an Xbox, Ipod touch, DS and access to computers and TV's; they use them all but are more than happy to be out when the weather's right.