Nature Activities for Kids – Nature Scavenger Hunt and Outdoor Printables
Check out these nature activities and learn how to bring nature into your home or classroom! Nature offers an array of hands-on learning and positive benefits for families and children, including exploration, discovery, connection, physical activity, and stress relief. Whether it’s a nature scavenger hunt or a full-on outdoor classroom with nature themed activities like birdwatching, a scavenger hunt, or leaf collecting, we’ve got fun ideas to get your children excited about exploring nature.
Take advantage of every season by using these nature printables and activities and creating inspiring projects to get your kids outside playing and discovering all year round!
Nature Activities for Kids
With all the electronics kids can get their hands on, it has become challenging to get kids outside and experience the beauty and wonder of nature. But children need to get out and enjoy nature.
Spending time outdoors helps children appreciate and understand the importance of the environment, improves creativity and self-esteem, and helps them develop problem-solving skills and self-awareness.
Here you will find nature activities and games that will get kids engaged with the natural world and inspire them to learn more about it. These activities are perfect for moms, teachers, caregivers, and camp leaders who want to help bridge the gap between children and nature.
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Exploring the Great Outdoors: Fun Nature Activities for Kids
Nature Scavenger Hunt
A great way to teach kids about nature is by organizing nature scavenger hunts. You can use the nature scavenger hunt in this printable pack or create your own list of common and uncommon items and then let the children run wild and try to locate these items.
They can look for things like rocks, shells, insects, leaves, or flowers. You can make this activity more interactive by creating an iSpy challenge or add educational content by asking the kids to identify the natural items that they collect.
Exploring Nature with Kids
Identifying Leaves with Kids
There’s something magical about collecting and identifying leaves with your kids. Not only does it encourage children to be curious it also teaches them about different tree species and their unique leaves.
To start, you can take your child for a walk in the park or your backyard and collect different leaves. You can then compare them by size, shape, and texture. You can also sort them by color and try to match them with the trees they came from.
If your child is into crafts, you can use the leaves to make leaf rubbings or DIY leaf patterns.
Add in this leaf spotter from the printable pack, and if you want extra leaf learning, add a field guide or download an app like Leafsnap or iNaturalist to identify the leaves by sight or photograph.
Types of Clouds for Kids – Cloud Spotter
Cloudwatching is another fun and relaxing activity that can spark your child’s imagination and creativity.
Clouds come in many shapes and sizes, and a lot of clouds depend on the weather, which makes cloud watching exciting and educational any time of the year.
Start by explaining the different types of clouds to your kids, such as cumulus, stratus, cirrus, and nimbus.
You can also talk about what each type of cloud means for the weather and how clouds form and disappear. You can then go outside on a sunny day and look at all of the clouds in the sky.
Your kids can use this cloud spotter to help describe each cloud’s shape and see if your child can identify whether it’s a fair-weather cloud or a storm cloud. These nature printables are wonderful!
Finally, you can encourage your child to draw or take pictures of the clouds and makeup stories about what they see in the shapes. We always love to include nature sketchbooks in our homeschooling days.
Nature Walks
Taking a nature walk is a beautiful and relaxing way of enjoying the beauty of the outdoors. Nature walks are perfect for kids since they can explore, ask questions, and find and discover new things at their own pace.
You can take the opportunity to introduce your child to different natural habitats, such as forests, mountains, rivers, and seashores.
Play games like Ispy, scavenger hunts, or nature bingo that require your children to use their observation skills. You can point out different animals, trees, plants, and bugs that you encounter along the way.
You can also take photos or make sketches of what you see in your nature journal or scrapbook.
Nature Theme Ideas
Nature is full of inspiration, so why not use it as a learning theme in your schooling? It’s easy to include a nature theme into any season and enjoy hands on learning and fun activities.
Start with nature-inspired crafts like leaf prints or homemade birdfeeders and birdhouses.
Incorporate nature art by using natural materials like leaves, twigs, and flowers to create art. Kids can make leaf rubbings, create a collage of natural materials, or even paint with mud.
Plan a camping trip, complete with smores and storytelling around a campfire.
For a Nature themed special occasion like birthdays or celebrations, create a natural environment by using real flowers, fruits, and veggies instead of artificial decorations.
Exploring nature with kids is a fantastic way of bonding, learning, and having fun. Identifying leaves, spotting clouds, and taking nature walks are just a few nature activities for kids that can awaken their sense of wonder and curiosity about the world around them.
By doing these activities, you can help your child build important life skills, such as observation, exploration, and creativity.
Study of Nature
Encourage your children to observe and conduct a study of nature. Start by taking time to sit in your backyard, park, or on your local hiking trail to observe the nature around you. Encourage your children to journal and sketch their discoveries.
Nature journaling will help them develop critical thinking and analytical skills. They will understand how nature operates, and this could inspire them to seek solutions to problems in the environment. Perfect for your homeschool science or classroom science activities.
Nature Books
Read books about nature and the environment, such as “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss or “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein.
Environmental Activities for Kids
Children have so much natural compassion and empathy. As parents and teachers, we can encourage children to apply this to conservation issues through activities such as planting trees, cleaning up litter, volunteering at local environmental organizations, and learning about ecosystems in their community.
These activities will teach children about taking responsibility for the environment and provide them a sense of accomplishment when they do things to help their community and Earth.
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Nature Activities
A great way to teach children the importance of nature is to take them out to explore and experience the outdoors and nature firsthand. Whether it’s a scavenger hunt, looking up at the clouds, nature-themed crafts, a study of nature, nature camps, or conservation activities, all of these nature activities and games allow you and your children to develop their minds and bodies.
Through these nature activities, they learn to appreciate the environment and become conservation-minded. They learn to love adventure in the great outdoors and to love and protect the natural world, all while they live as a part of it.