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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.
⭐ If you are looking for more activity ideas to try with your little ones, join us inside the Family Joy Club! Inside the club, all the hard work is done for you, so you can enjoy more creative play in your home and build more happy memories with your kids.
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.
7. Decorated sticks
This is such a fun activity to try with the kids! You can easily adapt it for multiple ages, so siblings can enjoy it together!
To decorate the sticks you can use paint, yarn, washi tape, or paint markers.
8. Nature color hunt
This idea is similar to the nature scavenger hunt, but a little easier. You just need a clipboard, paper, a pencil, and some colored markers.
Draw small boxes of different colors on paper. Then, invite your kids to search for items of each color during your nature exploration.
Once they find a color, they check the box and move on to the next one.
More nature activities for kids
Here are some additional nature activities for kids to use as inspiration.
9. Start a nature journal with your kids.
Here are two lovely nature journals that are great for kids:
10. Create a Nature Sensory Bag (by Hands On as We Grow)
hoto credit: Hands On as We Grow
11. Grow cress heads (details on this list of spring activities for kids)
13. Try a Nature Matching Game (by Pre-K Pages).
photo credit: Pre-K Pages
14. Create this Sticky Window Flower Garden from No Time for Flashcards (an easy activity with contact paper and flowers).
I hope you’ll enjoy trying these nature activities with your kids!
⭐ If you are looking for more activity ideas to try with your little ones, join us inside the Family Joy Club! Inside the club, all the hard work is done for you, so you can enjoy more creative play in your home and build more happy memories with your kids.
Great post. Children benefit from being exposed to sunlight, open air and other essential natural elements to help them to grow naturally healthy. Thank you for sharing this brilliant list of nature activities for kids.