Ten things every child should do

Climbing Everest, seeing the Pyramids or swimming with dolphins are the exotic experiences that normally dominate lists of things a person should do before they die.

But a new list has detailed the 33 things every child should have done before they are 10.

Rather than notching up overseas holidays and new skills, a panel of experts has recommended a checklist of essential childhood experiences that can mostly be achieved in a back garden.

Topping the list, compiled by play experts and celebrity mothers such as British TV presenter Melinda Messenger, was "rolling on your side down a grassy bank".

Making mud pies, growing cress and building sandcastles were all in the top 10. Collecting frogspawn and making perfume from flower petals also featured.

The Dirt is Good campaign has been launched by Persil to encourage parents to play more with their children rather than paying for expensive activities and holidays.

A survey of 1000 adults this year found that when asked for the best play experience a child could have before the age of 10, one in three people cited building a sandcastle.

But asked to name another activity after that, half were not able to.

Experts are concerned that children are becoming "play malnourished" because their parents will not let them out of their sight and cannot think of cheap and easy ways to play with their own offspring. An average 8-year-old is now allowed to stray only within a 100-metre circumference of the front door, according to the National Play Council.

Freedoms enjoyed by most 8-year-olds in 1971, such as going to a park on their own, are now delayed until the age of 11 - a loss of three years of independence.

- INDEPENDENT

The top things to do before reaching 10 are:

* Roll on your side down a grassy bank
* Make a mud pie
* Make your own modelling dough
* Collect frogspawn
* Make perfume from flower petals
* Grow cress on a windowsill
* Make a papier mache mask
* Build a sandcastle
* Climb a tree
* Make a den in the garden