Create a fun backyard for the kids

  • 4 minutes
  • 29 September 2017

Want your children to spend more time outdoors? Looking for some fun backyard DIY projects to spend more quality time with the kids?

Check out these awesome DIY ideas to turn your backyard into a world of adventurous fun.

Mound/Obstacle course

If your kids love active play, consider creating a play mound with hurdles, hopping stones, nets or slides as a natural obstacle course. It’s great for their motor skills and will tire them out so that bedtime becomes a breeze.

Gumboot garden

Gardening is a phenomenal skill to teach your children. They can learn how biology and works, cultivate an appreciation for nature, start to grow their own food and teach them the element of responsibility.

Make a second life for all those boots they’ve grown out of and create a garden of memories with them by planting their favourite fruit, vegetable or flower of the time they fit into that boot. Gumboots do work best, but any shoe would work for a while!

DIY Sandpit

A low retaining wall box much the same as a garden bed can make an impressive sandpit. Pretend you’re at the beach, add some sandpit toys for sensory play, or turn it into an archaeological dig! The possibilities are endless.

Position near the backyard boundary to add a Mud Kitchen for extra fun!

Sandpit in a fun backyard

Teepee

Take inspiration from the ultimate DIYers of indigenous tribes and make a natural shelter with logs and branches.

Can DIY projects be any more simple? To add more space, use boulders as sitting stones around the ‘campfire’, where they can ‘cook’ camp food and swap stories with friends.

Chalkboard wall

You got a paintbrush? Then you got a chalkboard wall! Turn any of your backyard boundary walls into a creative play space with a few coats of Dulux Design Chalkboard paint.

Best results will work on a smooth wall surface, like rendered brick or ModularWalls.

Hopscotch/Twister

Paint to the rescue again for this DIY project! Using sports field paints that won’t harm the lawn, draw patterns of popular games like Hopscotch and Twister, or mark out a small soccer/football/basketball field. If you have furry companions in the yard, ensure that the paint you’re using is pet-friendly.

Hopscotch in a fun backyard

Activity wall

DIY activity walls are sure to keep your children entertained all afternoon, whilst they learn. They’re great for cognitive learning and can teach the basics of certain scientific rules – but most of all, they’re just plain fun.

Add a track element with pipes and tubes that can be used as a water wall during the hotter months, and matchbox car-racing in the cooler months.

A fun backyard always needs a tree house with a swing

A classic element to any kid’s dream home. If you’re lucky enough to have a big, beautiful tree in your backyard, start with a small ladder-and-platform tree house that they can slowly add to over the years. And what tree-house isn’t complete without a swing!

For those who don’t have a tree, cubby-houses are a great alternative that a crafty DIYer could construct over a weekend.

Climbing Web

They’re a favourite at the park…so why not bring it home? Check out this awesome tutorial for a DIY climbing web for your backyard.

Climbing web in fun backyard

Toy storage benches

OK, this one is mostly for Mum and Dad. But the last thing you want is to keep stumbling over hula hoops, soccer balls, water guns and Tonka trucks when you’re just trying to water the garden or bring the washing in. These handy DIY storage cabinets double as benches and are incredibly easy to build against your backyard’s boundary or around a garden bed.

So there you have it, DIY projects for any child, make you backyard fun all year round.