Outdoor toys for grandkids

Cheap tent...or make one with sheets and old kitchen chairs.....! Always popular with my two (now 6 and 3).

A paddling pool or a big washing up bowl for some water play and some old plastic jugs cups to fill up and pour out again and again.

I think kids can have SO much fun in the garden , my garden is like an extra 'playroom' for the Grandkids

I do have a small trampoline I got 2nd hand on Ebay , it is less than a foot from the floor so does not need a net and the ground has thick astroturf mats on anyway ( I did go to town a bit but see it as an investment for years to come )

I have a sand and water table I got in the Tesco toy sale really cheap and that is a hit too , plus a ball pit which is just a sand pit frame with balls in it or you can put the balls in a play tent if it has a floor

I got a light up see saw for £15 which was a bargain as well but better for the older kids , oh and a play house I got pretty cheap on Amazon with cheap plastic tables and chairs inside from Homebase ( the chairs were £3 and the table was £5 )

Have also left a patch in my flower borders just for the kids to plant their own miniature sunflowers etc and water them and watch them grow

Have used a play parachute as a sunshade by just hanging it up and it looks great blowing up in the wind when it catches it plus it keeps them cooler underneath

Bubbles are ALWAYS a great cheap hit with the kids and I have ordered a bubble gun from China which blows BIG bubbles plus a gadget which fills up 32 water balloons all at once! lol

I am a sucker for kids garden toys but I don't actually spend much on them as am a bargain hunter and have one of those floor water slides plus one which just 'sprinkles' the kids with water but when my 2 were younger I just let them run under the garden plant sprinkler in their cossies and had the neighbours kids round as well and they used to 'camp out' under just a sheet over the washing line as was on a tighter budget then!

I do love water play in the summer though and plan to get jolly wet myself too in the process and am arranging a water fight with the neighbourhood kids already lol

Yep agreed. You can't beat a small paddling pool of water, plastic pots or jugs and a sieve or 2. I like to add a bit of bubble bath to the water to make it look interesting.

shysal you are a genius! Why didn't I think of parachute material for make a slide down a bank? Great idea.

My garden is on a slope, so I bought a 10 metre length of slippery parachute fabric on Ebay, which acts as a slide. All 6 GCs still love it, even the 16 year olds!
When younger I would arm them with plastic scissors, bowls and a jug of water for them to make 'herb soup', all their own idea. I had to be the customer in their café.
A great favourite was 'experiments' with vinegar, bicarb and food colouring. Great for volcanoes, rockets or just making a fizzy mess in plastic beer glasses.

Good idea, midgey. We had a tough vinyl table cloth that never saw a table. It had a design of farm animals which the children loved.

How about a cheap but sturdy vinyl table cloth, you could use it for bubbles, sandy mud pies, or sliding on. Jelly to play with/sit in etc, cornflour paste makes fantastic gloop you could have on the cloth. Oh and you might need a hose with a sprinkler to wash the children and the cloth!

I agree with all the water ideas my GCh like watering the flowers with small watering cans. I don't think you need to spend money.
I remember my siblings and i spending all one summer holiday with an old pair of curtains . We pulled each other round on them, crawled under them, made dens with them over a table and tents with them over the washing line.
Little ones like throwing balls into buckets or stepping from one mat to another in a small 'obstacle type course'
Have fun !

TinyTwo: I don't know if you have any plastic outdoor ride-on toys for the little ones, but if you do, they will probably love to 'wash' them if you give them both a cloth and a bowl of soapy water. They will probably end up soaking wet, but that's all part of the fun.

I got my DGCs (or should that be DGCn?) a cheap hobby horse each. I was lucky, because I spotted them both in a charity shop, but I've seen similar ones in The Works that weren't too expensive. Last year (when they were aged 3 years and 18 months), I would often lay a course of sticks around the garden and they would pretend to jump over them on their horses - after a demonstration from Grandma, obviously .

Another favourite is simply a garden trowel each and a patch of soil that they are allowed to dig in. Oh, and a little bucket into which they can temporarily put any worms that they find. They love worms and will spend ages looking at them and playing with them!

If it's warm enough for water play, chunky paintbrushes are good to use for painting with water on a paved area, path or wall. I had small children that loved doing this, it dries in the sun and they can start again.

Thanks for all these excellent suggestions. Annodomini - love that. I did use buckets and containers last year with my then 3 yr old dgd and she did love getting wet. Suspect her brother will too. He's just at that age where he loves containers of all sorts.
And I love the idea of the under the bed box, thanks J52 At least that won't be something that never gets used again!
Bubbles are always a winner - I'd forgotten about those joannapiano Right, it seems I was worrying needlessly, there's loads of fun, almost free things I have already. With all the toys on sale everywhere you start being convinced the kids need it all when they don't really. Thanks everyone.

That is a very sensible and excellent recommendation J52. At those ages a plastic box with some play sand would be fine. Perhaps, a bit later on, a water/sand combined play table.

How about sand in one of those plastic under bed boxes? They come with a lid so the cats wouldn't get in. x

Your GC will have such fun with that little pool, Mishap. I also recommend a play tent. Have lovely pictures of GD1 and her half brother enjoying my DS's little one-man tent with the washing-up basin just outside the entrance.

Oh that is very sad - the pool we have only takes a couple of inches of water - it is just enough to make a mess, and therefore a big hit!

That's a good size for small children, Mishap. When DS1 was little my sister (favourite auntie) bought him a paddling pool; a day or so later, she rang up in a panic, warning us about keeping an eye on him in the pool because, in her capacity as a GP she had been called in to see a toddler who had drowned in a paddling pool. 43 years later, she has never been able to get that out of her mind.

We bought a tiny paddling pool online - it is about 2 feet across and has been a great hit.

A washing-up bowl, lots of different containers and plenty of water. Small children can be kept happy for ages just filling and spilling. If it's warm enough, best clad in as little as possible.

Our under 8's love blowing bubbles in the garden. I have just bought a new bubble gun and a pack of bubble mixture in Tesco.

A covered sand pit , to keep the cats out , got loads of playtime from our lot .Floor chalks to draw on the path . we filled a paddling pool with coloured balls , then spent forever picking them out of the flowers .A play tent , ours is a fairy castle and was cheap from Lidl

How about a sandpit? One of those shell shaped ones that you can close when not in use. Tesco do a range and quite reasonably priced. My DGD had one of those bright pink rocking horses from when she was tiny, she loved it, as did all her little brothers. I think it was by Little Times.