Year 3 creative ideas - VE Day picnic, mini beast habitats, pebble art, land art, and scavenger hunt

Sep 24, 2026

Upload by Miles

A set of practical, play-based creative activities for Year 3 that support exploration, imagination, and learning through outdoor and home projects. Ideas include celebrating VE Day with family picnics and garden decoration, creating mini beast habitats and stone/pebble art, making land art and family tree art, showing appreciation for key workers, and planning an engaging scavenger hunt. The scavenger hunt section guides clue card design, grouping, timing, safe setup, hunting procedures, and reflective discussion, linking sense-based discovery to broader skills.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPosters

FormatPDF

Pages36

Reading Time13 min

AccessFree to download

VE Day picnic

Mini beast houses and insect habitats

Stone/pebble art

Showing appreciation for key workers

Land art

Family tree art

Scavenger hunt

| | VE DAY PICNIC | MINI BEAST HOUSES AND HOTELS
Encourage wildlife into your garden
by creating mini beast and insect habitats using things found outdoors.
REMEMBER they can be as simple or sophisticated as you like.

| STONE/PEBBLE ART | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | | Pebble painting
It’s great fun to research different pebble and stone painters. Elspeth Mclean is an Australian artist who created the pebbles in this illustration. Maybe you could | | | To celebrate VE day on the 8th of May, you could have a family picnic or a garden party. Decorate your garden in red, white and blue. Make some bunting and flags to wave. Enjoy designing your own funny hats to wear.
Use the template or design your own.
Bake a Victoria sponge, or maybe some scones.
Did you know that Victoria sponge was actually named after Queen Victoria?
Research war time recipes and have a go at baking some of the other culinary delights that people enjoyed during that era.

| | | | | | | | | research an artist who lives in the UK or the British
Isles. Have a go at using their style to help inspire you for your pebble painting.
Stone pictures
Alternatively, have a go at this super stone picture. This composition has been created by arranging stones of different sizes in varying ways.
I bet your family would love to see your stone family version of them.
Remember to write down the name of the artists you’ve researched, so that you can add them to your art book when you return to school.
| | | SHOWING YOUR APPRECIATION FOR THE KEY WORKERS

Research creative ways you can show your appreciation for our key workers.
Make rainbows, of all sizes.
Bunting, pictures to stick in your window, or flags and instruments that you can play or wave on Thursday evenings.
Use the templates or have fun creating your own designs.
| |
LAND ART
It’s great fun and can be done in your garden. Research land artists like Andy Goldsworthy, who created the sculpture in this image.
Remember to draw or take a photograph of
your work
so that you
can stick
it in your
art book
when you
return to
school.

| FAMILY TREE ART
A great idea to make at home, or whilst out on a walk in the woods with your family.

Research other fun activities online-try typing in “Forest schools”, to find lots of other fun outdoor activities you and your family can enjoy. | | |
NHS
visit twinkl.com

| | | --- | --- | fold [twinkl.com](twinkl.com) fold from Play the Forest School Way by P r H n rrete ugh o a d Ja e Wo ol – Available in all good book stores and online priced, £12.99 SCAVENGER HUNT Children have a natural urge to explore. A scavenger hunt is a fun, structured way of focusing this curiosity on all the shapes, sounds, plants, animals and other elements of their surroundings, opening the door to identification and deepening their bond with the landscape around them. This activity creates a sense of knowing, of familiarity, which in turn leads to a feeling of belonging, of being at home in the natural world. By making connections between what is sought and what is found, children learn how one thing relates to another and hone the use of their senses. This can lay the building blocks for recognizing themes in other areas, such as reading and mathematics, helping children to sort, process and use information in a variety of settings. They also learn to make connections between their inner experiences and the external world. And all this through play! Get ready Coming up with ideas for a scavenger hunt is easy: just think of outdoor objects that are common in your chosen area. (Obviously, avoid anything rare or poisonous!) You can also include experiences – for example, hearing a specific sound or feeling the wind on your face. Before you play, design a clue card with 9–16 things to find (adjust the number according to the age of t

FAQs

What should happen during the scavenger hunt and after it ends?

Hunters mark clues with crosses as they find them, with an adult helper allowed to encourage and hint without taking over. Afterward, discuss the hardest item to find, favorites, missing items and reasons, and feelings, then add nature facts to deepen connections.

Sep 24, 2026

Upload by Miles