5 Creative Outdoor Easel Activities for Kids (That Aren't Just Painting)

This one is a firm favourite for the under-5s, and it takes about two minutes to set up.

Tape a sheet of clear contact paper (sticky side out) directly onto the perspex panel of the easel. Then send your child into the garden with a small basket or trug and ask them to collect anything they find interesting: leaves, petals, blades of grass, small twigs, feathers, seed pods.

When they come back, they press their finds onto the sticky surface to build a 3D nature collage. The transparent panel means the finished piece looks genuinely beautiful when held up to the light.

If you've already got a mud kitchen in the garden, the easel is a natural companion piece. Think of it as the "menu board" and prep station for whatever concoction is being created that day.

Here's how to set it up:

1. Clip a large sheet of paper to the easel or use a whiteboard surface if your model has one.

2. Ask your child to draw or write (or scribble, for younger ones) the "recipe" for what they're making in the mud kitchen.

3. Use the paint pot ledges on the easel to hold small cups of water, mud, or "ingredients" they're working with.

4. The easel becomes the chef's station: recipe on display, tools within reach.

This kind of messy play is far more educational than it looks. Children narrate their play, invent sequences, and practice early mark-making, all without realising they're doing something that directly supports literacy and numeracy.

Research from early years specialists consistently shows that unstructured, sensory-led outdoor play builds the kind of neural pathways that support reading and writing readiness. The easel's vertical surface specifically encourages children to use their full arm range, which strengthens the shoulder and core muscles needed for handwriting later on.

What you need: Paper or a whiteboard surface, chunky chalk or washable markers, mud kitchen accessories.

Best for: Ages 3 to 7. Works brilliantly for siblings with an age gap, the older child can write the "recipe" while the younger one gathers ingredients.

This one came from my son, entirely unprompted. He started drawing clouds and suns on the easel and announcing the weather to the garden. We ran with it.

A garden weather station turns the easel into a daily outdoor ritual, and it's surprisingly easy to build into your morning routine.

• Clip a fresh sheet of paper to the easel each morning (or use a wipe-clean surface).

• Give your child a set of simple weather symbols to copy: sun, cloud, rain, wind, rainbow.

• Ask them to "forecast" the weather for the day by drawing what they think they see.

• Check back in the afternoon to see if they were right.

For older children (5+), you can extend this further. Add a thermometer nearby and have them record the temperature. Ask them to draw what they wore that day and why. Over a week, you've got a genuine data-recording exercise that maps directly onto early science and maths skills.

The hidden win here: Children who have a daily outdoor ritual are more likely to spend time outside consistently, even in the cooler months. The easel gives them a reason to go out and something purposeful to do when they get there.

What you need: Paper or wipe-clean surface, chunky markers or chalk, optional thermometer.

Best for: Ages 4 to 7. The recording element scales well as children get older.

This is the one that makes the most of what makes a perspex easel genuinely different from any other art surface. Because the panel is transparent, children can hold it up against the garden and essentially "draw on the world."

Here's the activity:

Position the easel so the perspex panel frames something interesting in the garden: a flower bed, a tree, the sky. Ask your child to trace what they can see through the panel using watercolour paints or washable window markers.

The result is a layered image where their painted lines sit over the real garden behind them. It's visually striking, and children find it genuinely magical.

Tracing from observation (rather than copying a picture) is a completely different cognitive task. It requires children to look carefully at shapes, distances, and proportions in the real world, and translate what they see into marks on a surface. This is exactly the kind of visual-spatial skill that underpins later maths ability and reading comprehension.

Cleaning tip: The acrylic surface wipes clean with a damp cloth. For watercolours, a quick hose-down does the job.

What you need: Watercolour paints or washable window markers, a cloth for wiping.

Best for: Ages 4 to 7. Particularly good for children who say they "can't draw" as tracing takes the pressure off and builds confidence.

This last one is my personal favourite, and it's the activity that has genuinely produced the longest stretches of independent play in our garden.

It works best with two children (siblings or friends), and it uses the easel as a shared canvas for building a story together.

One child draws a character or scene on one side of the perspex panel. The other child stands on the opposite side and draws a response. Because the panel is transparent, they can see each other's work through the surface, but each is drawing on their own side.

The result is a collaborative picture that looks different depending on which side you view it from. The story builds as they respond to each other's drawings, add new characters, change the setting, and react to what the other person creates.

This isn't just a creative activity. It's a social one. Children have to communicate, negotiate, and build on each other's ideas. They practice turn-taking and perspective-taking in the most literal sense: they are physically seeing the world from opposite sides of the same surface.

I've tried some of these activities with a cheaper plastic easel we had before, and the experience was noticeably different. It wobbled when the children pressed against it, the tray wasn't deep enough to hold paint pots securely, and after one winter outside it had started to crack along the joints.

The Wooden Messy Play Easel holds up to all five of these activities because of a few specific design choices:

The height adjustability is the feature I'd highlight most for parents buying for a younger child. A fixed-height easel becomes uncomfortable quickly as children grow. The leg extensions mean this one genuinely adapts, so you're not buying again in 18 months.

One honest note from reviews: A small number of customers have mentioned that screw holes can be slightly misaligned during assembly. Having a drill handy makes this much easier to deal with. Assembly typically takes 30 to 60 minutes once you've got the right tools.

The easel has been one of those garden purchases we've got far more from than we expected, mostly because we stopped thinking of it as a painting station and started thinking of it as an outdoor play platform.

Start with whichever activity sounds most like your child. The nature collage is the easiest entry point for younger ones. The collaborative storytelling tends to be the one that runs the longest once it gets going.

Browse the Wooden Messy Play Easel on Big Game Hunters, or explore the full messy play easel and balance board collection if you're building out a garden play area from scratch.