Nature activities for kids: 14 easy and fun ways to explore nature

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Inside: If you want to encourage your child to explore nature in a playful way, here are 13 nature activities for kids that are fun and easy to try!

Playing in nature has so many benefits for the kids! They get to explore new things, learn about the world around them, and enjoy all the wonderful little treasures nature has to offer.

I always try to encourage my kids to spend time in nature and get creative with all the natural items they discover. Natural loose parts are perfect for encouraging creative play, and kids love coming up with new ways to use them!

If you are looking for some easy and fun nature activities for kids, I gathered here some of our favorite ideas to inspire you!

1. Nature walk

This is one of the easiest nature activities you can do with your kids! A nature walk is a great opportunity to let the child explore flowers, trees, and insects.

We often go on the trails near our home for quiet walks.

My kids like searching for ants, bugs, and snails! We also talk about the different species of trees along our walk. Lately, we started to pay more attention to the birds, and we talk about them as well!

To make nature walks even more interesting, give your child a magnifying glass and binoculars. You can also create nature explorer badges for kids to wear during the walks.

2. Nature-inspired sensory bottles

To create nature-inspired sensory bottles, you just need fill it a few small bottles with different natural elements: small pebbles, sticks, leaves, flowers, seeds, etc. The sensory bottles are perfect for exploring nature, and you can create them in a lot of different ways!

You can find a collection of nice ideas on the Rhythms of Play blog, here.

3. Nature treasure box

You can create a nature treasure box using an empty egg carton.

While exploring nature, invite your child to collect different items like rocks, small sticks, leaves, pine cones, shells, flowers, and so on. Store the little treasures in the box and use them at home for more nature activities.

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4. Nature scavenger hunt

I am a big fan of scavenger hunts because they are great boredom busters! They are a good way to keep the kids engaged while exploring the outdoors.

If you want to try this activity with your kids, you can download the printable activity from here: Nature scavenger hunt for young kids.

5. Nature art

Go on a nature walk and invite the kids to collect nature items in a basket. At home, use the things they collected to create nature art.

One of our favorite ideas is creating nature portraits using leaves and flowers.

6. Homemade bird feeder

My kids are very happy any time they have the chance to feed animals, and I wanted to teach them how to feed birds too. So we created together a homemade bird feeder.

There are a lot of different tutorials on the internet, so we tried several ideas!

If you are looking for some inspiration, here are two simple ideas that we liked: Pine Cone Bird Feeder Tutorial and Citrus Cup Bird Feeders.