Many homeowners consider the backyard the perfect place to build a patio, deck or outdoor kitchen. To me, it’s a playground. I wasn’t a homebody when I was a child. I felt more alive spending my waking hours outdoors than binge-watching cartoons.
I’ve always wanted my boy to experience the same thrill. If you want the same thing for your children, consider these six easy DIY backyard ideas to promote a more active lifestyle at home.
1. Playground Turf
Your backyard must have abundant green space where kids can run around until they drain their batteries. However, not every empty lawn makes a safe playground. Holes, lumps, sharp rocks and protruding roots are hazards that can injure your energetic rug rats with or without supervision.
Address your uneven land and surface it with a suitable material. A good choice is synthetic turf, which delivers a uniform look, drains well, requires little maintenance and prevents stains. Installing a layer of padding beneath the faux grass improves impact absorption, making it friendly to your children as they develop better balance and coordination.
2. Sandbox
Sand is an excellent playground surface, turning any day into beach day without requiring you to wake up at daybreak to set everything up. It cushions the impact of falls as your toddlers explore their physical limits. This material makes a tactile play area, improving your children’s sensory awareness and aiding fine motor skill development.
Plastic, wood and in-ground are the most common paths to backyard sandbox construction. Plastic sandboxes require no heavy lifting and pose no risk of splinters. They suit smaller children and tinier backyards.
No-frills wooden sandboxes only have rectangular frames — those without built-in bottoms have a tarp separating the sand from the yard’s surfacing material. Corner seats, benches, retractable roofs and mesh covers are thoughtful add-ons if you feel inspired. You can repurpose your freestanding wooden sandbox for gardening when your children outgrow it.
In-ground sandboxes have seamless edges, presenting no tripping hazards. You can make them as expansive as your backyard permits. Although the construction requires some digging, it’s one of those easy outdoor projects you can finish in one or two days.
Furthermore, sand and water tables are worth considering. These new sandbox iterations roll sand and water play areas into one, delighting youngsters with fun-filled sensory exploration. You can choose from plastic models or build one with wood.
3. Hopscotch Court
Playing hopscotch can accelerate preschoolers’ gross motor skills. The game involves a lot of counting and remembering the order of numbers, so it’s also cognitively beneficial.
To draw a hopscotch court, you need a flat, hard surface, like concrete pavers. Although paint is more weather-resistant, chalk is more forgiving. Drawing an easily erasable court is one of the easiest backyard projects for beginners and lets you increase the difficulty for your children as you see fit.
A classic hopscotch court is a straight line made up of single and double squares. Drawing one in a spiral pattern or the shape of a rocket makes the game more challenging and interesting.
4. Horseshoe Pit
Horseshoe pitching is a timeless lawn game the whole family can enjoy. Throwing horseshoes requires technique, enhancing your children’s dexterity the more they play.
Although this sport has simple rules, constructing the pit will make or break it. Fortunately, if you have a small backyard, you can build a single 31-by-43-inch pit on level ground instead of two 36-by-72-inch pits.
Within the pit, drive almost two-thirds of a 3-foot mild steel or iron stake into the ground until about 14 inches of it is visible. The stake should be steady and the surface soft. You can bury a 4-by-4 wooden block to secure the stake or weld a steel metal plate over its underground portion. Then, fill the hole with loose soil, clay, sand or play sand.
Generally, a whole horseshoe court measures 30 inches from side to side. Use a pair of 4-by-6-foot pieces of wood to define the court’s front, while two 40-by-6-inch pieces demarcate the sides.
Regarding pitching locations, mark two lines — a 37-foot one for adult men and a 27-foot one for other players.
5. Vegetable Garden
Gardening is more than an exhilarating activity for kids. It also supports holistic development — it teaches self-sufficiency and sustainability, instills discipline and responsibility, piques interest in science, and promotes environmental conservation. If you live with young picky eaters, encouraging them to grow their own fruit and vegetables can entice them to be more adventurous and eat the rainbow.
The best part is that building raised garden beds for crops with deeper roots and planter boxes for those with shallower ones is one of the easiest DIY backyard ideas if you know basic woodworking.
Alternatively, you can buy and assemble kits to save more time and energy. The most important thing is to pick a good vegetable garden location. An ideal site should:
- Get plenty of sun.
- Be away from where rainwater accumulates.
- Be far from the perimeter of an old house with potentially lead-laden soil.
- Be accessible from the house and near a water source for irrigation.
- Have soil with a pH level of 6-6.5 — unless you intend to plant veggies that can thrive in acidic conditions, such as cauliflower and broccoli.
After choosing the ideal site, kill perennial weeds and eradicate insects residing in the sod through tilling and mulching. Early spring is the best time to do this. Start with planter boxes to begin gardening with your kids as you prepare the site since these containers have sides and a bottom.
6. Obstacle Course
Nothing triggers an adrenaline rush in little ninja warriors than various physical obstacles. You can recycle your old tires by creating a rubber pathway children can use to test their balance and coordination.
After a tire run, construct a few balance beams oriented diagonally. Build height-appropriate leaping bars to enhance your children’s leg strength. Unlike other backyard projects for beginners, this idea lets you give stumps new leases in life as stepping logs. You can round out the course with hurdles kids can crawl under or jump over. The final obstacle should lead them back to the tire run to create an endless course.
Are You Excited to Try These Easy DIY Backyard Ideas?
While some of these ideas suit specific age brackets, they’re all engaging for the right crowd. Combine them whenever possible to double the fun for the whole family.