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.

Give them a kite! More than enough air that way :D

Make a scarp book of things found or photos taken

We take our 6 year old Geocaching and Xplorer Orienteering, she loves it

Always take food and drink, even if you don't plan on going far. Mine often moan about going out for a walk but once we're out, they really enjoy it but they do get very hungry after a bit of time spent in the fresh air.

We try to arrange walks with other families, more kids=more running around, better games of hide and seek, less moaning etc.

When younger, a bucket or bag for treasures always went down well.

Fortunately, my kids love being outdoors so I don't really have trouble in getting them up and out but I find the more we do together the more they love it, make it interesting for everyone

I don't have much problem getting my daughter out and about, she loves going to the local parks. My parents have got an allotment and she loves going up there to "help", she's only 3, but she is more of a hinderance at the moment, my mum loves taking her and teaching her about vegetables.

I have also bought her a scooter (and helmet!!) so she loves going out on that, she's not very good at steering though, lol!!

We also love jumping in muddy puddles so I have purchased a puddle suit and a pair of wellies so we can go out whatever the weather :)

I'm lucky that my children don't need that much persuading to go outside but the promise of Geocaching always gets them excited. A real life treasure hunt... what's not to like?!

Start with an easter egg hunt on sunday. Then we go looking for mushrooms in the autumn especially the redcap ones that look just like fairy houses. We go to the Fairy Hill at least once a year to make offerings to the fairies and tie our wishes on the trees. It's uphill all the way and a fairly steep climb. Then I try and think of other outdoor searches. We went looking for otters once and dolphins. Anything to catch their interest and make them want to go that wee bit further.

We like to go birdwatching. We have our book and binoculars and encourage them to look for themselves

It's just what we do.
We've always taken every opportunity to be out & about & make it as fun as possible. We go on missions to find particular things as well as trying to guess where our friendly Troll will leave his next surprise etc.

anywhere with a swing works!

Organise exciting activities....keep an eye on local newspapers for events

Start them from babies in slings and backpacks. Point out all interesting things in nature-birds, animals, plants, clouds, fish and how it all changes through the year. Eat edible stuff-blueberries, rasps, brambles, sorrel. Let them get mucky, let them paddle, swim build dams, float reed boats, fish, make huts. Spend plenty time in one place (eg lakeside all morning) so they explore properly. Don't hover too much and just let them be a bit.

Dogs are good excuse for walks as they have to go out in all weathers, so a good excuse to experience wind, rain, cold etc.

No such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes.

my youngest believes there are fairies in the woods, so a trip down there is always greeted with a loud cheer!

Give Geocaching a go. It's a bit like a treasure hunt. Our boys love it.

I get my kiddies to make a map and then we put our wellies on and head to the woods. The kiddies then use their maps to guide us round the woods.

This time of year its quite easy to get em up and out of bed and in the fresh air - I just hide Cadbury's cream eggs in the garden ;-)

Geocaching sounds ace, must try that.

Make sure you're wearing the correct clothes (i.e. suitable for the weather) as it's no fun getting wet and miserable, but after that just go for it and make it as fun as possible. Collecting things in a treasure hunt in the woods is great, e.g. pinecones, leaves and so on. Building a den is brilliant fun too as is climbing trees - all children love doing that!

I don't have to encourage my child to go outdoors, or to enjoy being outdoors. He enjoys getting involved in the garden, making decisions about what to plant and using his own garden tools to help out. I suppose we take him to places where he can entertain himself and explore the area reasonably safely, e.g. we've recently had a bucket and spade day at a beach, and today we were at a local forest school. He's a preschooler and there seems to be loads of options locally (scotland).

We like taking my twin boys to our local nature reserve. We sometimes walk round looking for mini beasts or we go out on our bikes taking a picnic and blanket and go to Clumber park its great fun bring on the summer x

It's not too difficult to persuade my 2 DDs (2 and 4) who love spending time outdoors. We do gardening projects in our garden at home and DD age 4 helps me with those. She also loves 'collecting' things so giving her a bag to pop all her things in (leaves, twigs, petals etc) that she finds on a family ramble can then be made into an art project.

Scavenger hunts! We go on lots of walks as a family (2 DCs, aged 8 & 9) and one of the things they love is when I give them a list of 'treasures' to find, such as elf hats (acorns), wands (twigs) and fairy wings (tiny leaves). They fill a bag each full and tick the items off on their lists. It's great fun and extremely imaginative!

We've done some wild camping as a family, lighting fires without matches, cooking stick bread and making shelters. You can do this out there in the wilderness or in your back garden and it's great to learn real skills together as equals with your children and it leaves you with a real sense of achievement

I try and "find" treasure! Take their buckets and spades and collect loads of shells if on beach, sticks/stones if in the woods or park. Take loads of nice goodies to eat and drink as picnics always go down well!!!!

We prepared a collection of tasks to be completed within a specified area so we knew where they were and that they were safe!!!They were provided with a camera to take pics of plantlife(so no damage to nature)and any animal life seen.

This template could be altered to fit the changing seasons and created hours of fun I am assured by those taking part.We also had a great trio of books which covered all the relevant topics so many hours were spent looking up their results.

Very happy kids and very happy adults