At what age is it reasonable to expect DCs to entertain themselves in the garden?

[AdamAnt]

I've tried plonking mine (20 months and 3.3) in the garden so I can et on with a bit of MNing housework, but they just drift around for a minute or two, then start pushing each other off the slide, and after about 3 and a half minutes they are wailing to come back in. It's a gorgeous day out there. How can I persuade them to enjoy it without me?

thanks, Franny! GREAT tips! even more ways for them to have fun. i agree, mud is essential.

our driveway is gravel.

bucket and spade and toy rake keeps them entertained for ages.

thanks for the tips about the Tesco garden chalk, too, OMDB. we go through a lot of it.

yes, they've been watering the daffodils over and over.

fearlessfreak my DS is also obsessed with stones, a large portion of our garden is gravel, I think at one time is was supposed to form a nice border between the beds and the lawn, but after 3 years of DS's hard messmaking landscape gardening it is much more evenly dispursed throughout the garden!

At least I'm not garden proud!

I got two old tyres from the dump a few weeks ago and put them in the garden, haven't decided what to do with them yet but DS loves them and has used them in many ways.

If you have boys who are into dinosaurs, keep all their model dinosaurs outside too, or in a box that can easily be taken outside, so many imaginative games can be played with them, a bit of mud, some water and lots of plants!

ours regularly pick up about 20% of the gravel driveway.

give 'em a rake and a broom and tell them to 'tidy up'.

I also have some plastic drain pipe that I pulled out of a skip in the garden, ds likes to prop one side up on bricks and then pour watering-cans full of water down it, or roll balls down it, or cars, or leaves, or worms . Again this keeps him amused for hours

lol expat, DS tries to tidy up, but really it just gets moved around the garden a bit more!

About once a year (you know, that day when it's actually warm outside!) I go out and properly tidy it all up, until then, the garden stays as DS's domain...