Parents stuck for things to do outside with the kids, this one's for you.
Here are some fun outdoor activity ideas - created especially for lockdown - by the Tasman-based charitable trust Whenua Iti Outdoors.
Photo: Supplied
Whenua Iti Outdoors general manager Mark Bruce Miller tells Jesse Mulligan just because people are at home, doesn't mean they need to stop being connected to nature.
"I've got four kids now at home, I see every day the lure of them getting connected more and more to their screens as online learning drives that," Miller says.
"But we need to stop that every now and again, take a break, go outside, connect back to the natural environment, feel the grass under your feet, feel the fresh air around you, and give your brain a bit of a rest."
Make a Waka (Raft) - one of the Nature Connection Activities Photo: Whenua Iti Outdoors
Whenua Iti Outdoors is based in Lower Moutere in the Tasman District.
For 35 years, the charitable trust has been helping children aged between five and 18 grow in confidence through their environment, Miller says.
"There's no such thing as a difficult course, but the underlying tenor of all our courses is to allow the young person to leave feeling stronger, walking taller, feeling connected to who they are, where they come from and more informed and motivated to take the next step in their education or from education to employment,".
The nature connection activities his team created are for everyone, Miller says, but they especially suit children who enjoy learning outside of a classroom, he says.
"By the time we're 15, 16 years old, we've been in the classroom for 11 years or so and that's not for everyone.
"We don't traditionally celebrate enough the variety of learning we have, and that practical experiential learning is just as valuable, if not more so, than the more academic elements of learning we can achieve in the classroom."
Whenua Iti Outdoors run courses in rock climbing, kayaking and mountain biking, as well as work experience programmes with the police and paramedics.
"The similarity across all of them being that they're experiential practical programmes in the outdoors that are designed to create platforms for success for young people when otherwise we're sometimes at risk societally of telling our kids they're failing a bit too much," Miller says.
Whenua Iti Outdoors has received nearly $1 million from the Jobs for Nature fund, to create a team of teachers and instructors who aim to connect young people to the environment.
The Nature Connection Activities set is free to download and can be used by students, teachers and families.
