What are your tips for getting your children to enjoy the great outdoors? Share your ideas on this thread to win a £100 North Face giftcard and more

[EmilyMumsnet]

As kids spend more and more time glued to a screen, they’re experiencing less and less of nature and the great outdoors. To help you enjoy the first whiffs of spring, we’re working with publishers Frances Lincoln to give away one £100 North Face e-giftcard, as well as 5 copies of their new book 100 Family Adventures.

100 Family Adventures is a brilliant resource book packed full of fun ideas for outdoor activities the whole family can enjoy. There’s tips and tricks for budding explorers, sailors and mountaineers, as well as games and adventures more suited to your local area.

To enter our competition, post your top tips for getting your kids up and out into the fresh air on the thread below. The more inventive the better! Share your ideas on this thread before 10am on 6th April 2015. 100 Family Adventures is published on 5th March 2015

This competition is now closed

Thanks to everyone for their wonderful tips and suggestions - you know you're in Great British countryside when cagoules, wellies and a thermos are must-haves!

Winner: Valski

Runners up:
Amy106, BLUEBERRYHEART, greenapples, TooManyNames, Nuttynelnew

We'll be in touch soon about sending out your prizes. In the meantime, congratulations to the winners and thanks again to everyone for contributing.

Vary the activity, climb a mountain, walk through the woods, do a bike ride. Take a few treats and ban the gadgets.

take the kids to the park, it keeps them active and its fun for them. Also if you exercise, try to incorporate the kids, eg. I go running and get the kids to come out on their bikes and they ride along as I jog.

We make up adventure stories as we walk using the wildlife we see on the walk. My son loves Pokemon, he can't wait to get outside so he can invent new characters.

I have two ideas, both of which my parents introduced me and my sister to and in turn I have been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiastic response of my own two girls.

1. When my eldest daughter was 5, she was fixated on spending the night outdoors to prove how very brave she was! This was something we seized upon and we set up the tent and took out the sleeping bags and she spent half the night awake and bonding with her Dad. In the morning, after a night of high jinks with her Dad, I took the happy campers toasted sandwiches and hot chocolate and since then Jen has been a keen devotee! At nearly 7 she is getting used to seeing us set up the tent and seems keen to get involved in this process. We have even had the disposable barbecues that you can buy to top our nights off and make a it a real adventure and have let Jen bring a friend along, albeit chaperoned by either me of her Dad. As you can imagine she was very keen to enrol in Rainbows with all of her experience! I just hope our younger daughter is just as keen!

1. When my sister and I started primary school and experienced our first few sports days, we used to look forward to this summer highlight of the school term. As children we had a fairly decent size back garden and Mum and Dad used to set up various obstacles for us. We had walking and balancing along a bench, skipping for 30 seconds, throwing the bean bag as far as we could and tunnelling under various other obstacles such as the garden table, all culminating in a ride down the slide and sprint to the finish. With our two, we have really upped the stakes with the introduction of the trampette and the egg and spoon racing. The girls have now suggested hula hooping, which I think rules me and their Dad out, but we are always keen to encourage their ideas and by the end of an afternoon of that fun we are all ravenous and sleep well! At Christmas, we bought a large croquet set for kids and we are planning the addition of our very own crazy golf. With all of us participating, enthusiasm is kept up and this is something we aim to do each month.

I hope that helps other parents. I had found that as my eldest daughter spent more and more time playing iPad games and became possessive and demanding with it, this we something we needed to nip in the bud and the ideas above certainly helped us!

All the best, Rachel (Valski)

We are very lucky that from a very early age they have been fascinated by bugs and wildlife and need no encouragement to be out and about even in poor weather.

They like team sports so it's easy to get them outside.

Inspired years ago but the success of Easter Egg Hunts we have lots of treasure hunts! This is great as it gets our own brains working as we think up new places to go and things to hide and clues. We then go out and set it up and then take the kids - who are so keen! They love the competitive edge and the quiz solving and then the finding!

The right kit definitely helps! We enjoy getting outside and are currently ticking off the hills near our home. It's great going on an expedition with the kids.

Another favourite is visiting a ruined castle and pretending to be knights. Gets them running around in the fresh air.

We are always outside whether in the garden or walking the dog. I really don't need to encourage my son as he is the driving force! We garden and explore the Derbyshire Dales where we live. Discuss wildlife and flowers/trees, jump in puddles and dig!

Get some pots with lids & a magnifying glass. My son had to be dragged home after a day in the woods or the park examining wildlife!

Lots of walks down the beach usually does it for us...whatever the weather!

Take binoculars / books to draw in / children's cameras /magnifying glasses. Plan the week before with the children where to go and make it an adventure.

I do complicated treasure hunts which involve exploring the local area with maps, historical sites, public transport etc - kids will do anything for prizes. My kids loveproblem solving and learning lots of new skills including how to use public transport, read train timetables etc

MY KIDS LOVE IT, THEY DON'T WANT TO STAY IN MY TOP TIP WOULD BE MAKE IT A WAY OF LIFE EXCITING ETC. DONT ENCOURAGE TV'S AND GAME CONSOLES AND THEY WONT BE GLUED TO THEM! X

go on lots of nature walks together, we go once a month and the kis love it

We take them to easy peaks in the Peak District with a packed lunch and make a day of an adventure. We go to parks, farms and have our own veg patch, and we have a trampoline.
They have iPads but are not that bothered over them. It tends to be twice a week thing for an hour or so then they end up playing anyway. The next step is to get them riding their bikes.

My 5yo DS loves drawing treasure maps so we take one with us and go to the park/NT place/garden looking for treasure. If I'm very well prepared we have a small packet of chocolate buttons to 'find', otherwise the treasure ends up being a feather or nice leaf or buried too deep to get this time. Other times we head to a nearby forest to build dens or go on a bear hunt.

2yo DD loves going out on her bike and there are lots of bike-friendly parks near us. They both have scooters, which I keep in the car for impromptu trips on the way home from school/nursery. Neither of them really need any persuasion to go outside and I'm an outdoorsy person too so we hardly ever have days in.

My son was a nightmare to inspire to do anything, he was bored all the time but wouldn't put any effort into anything. He used to complain about car journeys when we were going somewhere fun! argggh!
But anyway, since we love being outdoors and were not going to be stopped, going for a walk was called going for an adventure, and we always tried to pick places that would have fun things to do. My son had his own rucksack of goodies, and was always soon in possession of a big stick to poke at things. We found rocks or trees to climb, took a rope for ropeswings and a little portable hammock to string up. We made piles of leaves and jumped in them, we poked around in rivers. Never let the weather stop us either. Mud encouraged!

Geocaching
Orienteering
Blackberrying
Conkering
Camping

Dd(3) needs no persuading, dS (6) is harder to encourage.

The best idea is to go out for a picnic

Beach olympics was a hit with my kids. Races, high jump (pile up the sand!), long jump, stone throwing................ although watch out for tourists in the summer, that's not yet an olympic event.

I always enjoyed orienteering when I was young. My Dad used to do it at weekends and we'd go along. It was great fun, a bit like a treasure hunt! So, when I had children I was really keen to introduce them to the joys of chasing through the woods with a map. It's a fun way to spend time together outdoors as well as learning valuable skills.

Olivia loves animals so we like to visit nature reserves, a lot of which are free entry or working farms which allow visitors

My three-year-old son needs no encouragement to get outdoors! He loves adventures and has such an amazing imagination. Every day is something new!

I think you need to just do it! I've tried to normalise it for my DC that everyday you go out for fresh air and exercise.

We treat each outing as an adventure and go over what we did when we get home, sometimes just recounting the fun on the big slide at the park or looking at pictures that we took walking through the forest. I hope that by doing this I am helping them love nature and build good memories.

It brings a smile to my face when my son asks what adventure we will be going on today.