The Stick Book

The stick is a universal toy. Totally natural, all-purpose, free, it offers limitless opportunities for outdoor play and adventure and it provides a starting point for an active imagination and the raw material for transformation into almost anything! As New York's Strong National Museum of Play pointed out when they selected a stick for inclusion in their National Toy Hall of Fame, 'It can be a Wild West horse, a medieval knight's sword, a boat on a stream, or a slingshot with a rubber band ...' In this book Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield offer masses of suggestions for things to do with a stick, in the way of adventures and bushcraft, creative and imaginative play, games, woodcraft and conservation, music and more.

- Discovering sticks
- Adventure and bushcraft sticks
- Make a fire
- Cook over a fire
- Build a den
- Make a DIY tent
- Make a staff
- Make a stick sword
- Make a catapult
- Make an ancient spear-thrower and a spear
- Make a bow and arrows
- Make a pea-shooter
- Magic sticks
- Make a star wand
- Make a wizard's wand
- Make scavenging sticks
- Make a witch's broomstick
- Make a wiggly snake
- Make shadow pictures
- Make stick characters
- Make stick and clay animals
- Make a fairy house or an elf castle
- Make miniature worlds for toy people and animals
- Make hobby animals
- Make woodland monsters
- Make woodland magic carpets
- Make a flying creature
- Make fairy and fish sticks
- Make wild storyboards
- Creative sticks
- Draw in mud and sand
- Make charcoal pencils
- Make a paintbrush
- Make a picture frame
- Make a woody crown
- Make a necklace
- Create stick art for a woodland gallery
- Choose a stirring stick
- Make a nest
- Make a dream-catcher
- Make a loom for wild weaving
- Weave a wild basket
- Make stick and paper lanterns
- Make natural mobiles and wind chimes
- Make a wreath
- Decorate a seasonal stick tree with stick stars
- Stick games
- Throw a stick for a dog
- Play pick-up sticks
- Make a flying machine
- Play capture the flag
- Play quoits
- Play Aunt Sally
- Invent your own stick games
- Do the stick tower challenge
- Play tracking with sticks
- Play the woodland mapping game
- Sunny sticks
- Navigate with a stick and the sun
- Make a sun clock
- Measure the radius of the earth
- Musical sticks
- Make percussion sticks
- Make stick rattles
- Bushcraft busking with a can guitar
- Watery sticks
- Play Pooh sticks
- Mini raft challenge
- Make a pond-dipping net
- Make a fishing rod
- Measure the depth of a stream
- Woodcraft and conservation
- Make your own walking/tracking stick
- Make a stretcher
- Make a mouse trap
- Plant a tree
- Make a habitat pile
- Make a creepy-crawly hotel
- Make a bird feeder
- Stick stuff
- Index
- Acknowledgments