Family Friendly Fun

Late May marks the celebration of National Children’s Gardening week, providing a perfect opportunity for us to share our family-friendly activities and youth volunteering projects here at Heath Hands.

Our new drop-in family gardening sessions offer a chance to get your little ones introduced to gardening basics, and flex your own green fingers! Work might include helping out in our very own plant nursery where you can watch plants progress from seed to site-ready: you could be transplanting our seedlings as they grow or helping to weed out any unwanted tag-alongs. Family drop-ins run every Wednesday at 4pm – check our What’s On page for dates.

Our nursery: a whole new world to explore!

Drop-in planting session at our Hive wildflower meadow

‍Eco-learning doesn’t need to stop there; our free Heath Spotter Sheets are available to download from our web shop or can be picked up at our bases, the Heath Info Hut or the Dairy Nature Centre, providing the perfect activity to accompany any summer walk. With sheets on wildflowers, birds, historical architecture and more, there’s something for everyone.

Identifying an Ash tree using one of our spotter sheets

‍Speaking of walks, our guided nature walk programme has proved super popular so far this year, and we expect June to be no different. Join us for an after-school adventure on 5th June to discover tucked-away Sandy Heath and visit the Heath’s newest residents - the sheep, or take part in an insect safari on 22nd June to learn more about the wide range of invertebrate communities that call the Heath their home.

And if a whole nature walk feels like a bit much, you can also drop in to our Wild about Hampstead Heath nature discovery sessions in the Parliament Hill area - next few dates: 2-4pm 30th May, 7th June, 13th June.

Full details on our what’s on page..

Hands-on learning during a family ‘Trees and Hedgerows’ walk

Back at our home, the Hive, our regular Youth Volunteers have been getting their hands dirty helping on a variety of conservation and gardening projects including the re-design of the Savernake Bridge beds. This site has had an incredibly transformation over the past few months, and our Youth volunteer cohort have played a major part in this. Go team!

Our youth volunteers planting new plants at Savernake.

Finally, with the weather warming up the Heath is busier than ever, and sadly many visitors neglect to take their rubbish with them. Why not get your family involved in one of our Saturday litter picking sessions, running from 12-1pm from the Heath Info Hut? We’d say it’s the perfect timings for finishing at the market for a well-deserved snack…

Litter picking champions!

All this work is made possible with the support of some amazing funders. The National Lottery Awards for All and Young Camden Foundation have been instrumental in funding our youth programmes, while recent support from the Garfield Weston Foundation and D'Oyly Carte Charitable Trust has helped develop our SEN programmes. We’re also excited to be partnering with Kentish Town City Farm and Sir Hubert von Herkomer Foundation this summer to provide a series of family nature walks and youth nature workshops for local families and young people, with support from local Camden funding.

For more information on all our youth and schools programmes head over to the Youth page of the website and find out more, or check out our upcoming family-friendly events below.