5 ways to play with tires (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party, if you've played outside this week then please do link up below.   

Recently we had to replace several tyres (tires) on our car, Hubby was not impressed, but having seen lots of exciting play ideas from Learning for Life and Let the Children Play and knew the boys would have great fun playing with the tyres.  This is what they came up with...

1 - Washing Tyres

First up as the tyres had just come off the car we gave them a good clean with soapy water.  Put this provided lots of play in itself, all three boys were able to get stuck in.  A little on the mucky side, but mostly they just got a little damp.

2 - Climbing on Tyres

The boys love to climb, so one of the first things they did was climb on the tyres.  On them, in them, out again - lots of climbing!

3 - Hiding in Tyres

They also discovered that when you climb inside they create a pretty good hiding place.

They started by hiding in two tyres and sitting down inside, but soon they built a tower of tyres and with a bit of help managed to hide inside.  I supervised this play as I think toppling over in full height tyres would be pretty painful, but as always only do with your own kids what you're comfortable with.

4 - Tyre Obstacle Course

The tyres were perfect for an obstacle course, we spread them out and the boys had to balance on them and leap from one to another.  I think if we do this again we should time it and get them doing laps - helps them sleep better!!

5 - Tyre Construction

The tyres are a brilliant addition to the loose parts collection we are slowly building up.  This is how they are most often played with as part of some imaginary play construction.  They are big enough that they can make something sizable to sit in, stand on etc, but small enough that with a bit of effort the boys can move them around.

Then when all that was done, they went back to the water play with them again.  This time they 'painted' them.

We are continuing to enjoy our tyres, other things we could do would be to roll them around (the boys aren't quite strong enough for this yet), make a tyre swing, plant something in them or fill them with something like gravel and use them for small world play.  The possibilities are a little endless and I'm very pleased with this addition to our garden.

And so to the Outdoor Play Party.  We had loads of posts linked up last time and my favourite was this great collection of outdoor gross motor games from Train Up a Child a fellow boy mum.  Heaps of simple ideas for getting kids active outdoors.

If you've played outside with kids this week then we'd love for you to link up your posts.  Doing so gives us permission to share one photo with link on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+