Create a record of your garden to help children appreciate the changing seasons and see the value of simple and regular observation. Recording things provides memories for the future
What you will need
a scrapbook
sticky-backed plastic
old seed catalogues
a camera
scissors
glue
paper
felt pens and crayons

1 Ask your children to draw a picture of themselves in the garden, write the date and their address underneath it and stick it on the first page of their scrapbook.
2 They can collect leaves and plants from the garden and put them in their scrapbook. Help them to put sticky-backed plastic over them, and to write their names by them.
3 They can draw pictures of different parts of the garden.
4 Or they can take photographs of the garden. Maybe they could choose one part, and take a picture of it on the first day of each month for a year. Then they can see how much everything changes.
5 Encourage them to keep their scrapbook near a window and draw or write the names of the birds they see coming into the garden over the different seasons.
6 Stick in the seed packets of any seeds they grow. Give them old seed catalogues to cut out pictures of plants they want to grow - or they may like to design their dream flowerbed!
7 They can draw, cut out and label any wildlife they find. They might see frogs, butterflies, hedgehogs, ladybirds, beetles, ants, bees, caterpillars, foxes - the list is endless.
8 Why don't you get them to ask other people in your family, or visitors, to add something to their book?