Activities - Nature Activities for Kids

Here are some suggestions for easy nature activities for children:
Take plain or coloured sheets of paper and crayons with you out on walks to e.g. woods or parks and do rubbings of bark, stones, walls. Plants such as ferns are good as well for rubbings.
Ask your child to spot 5 different things in nature as you are out and about.
Collect differently shaped leaves and draw round them when you get home for colouring in or collages
See how many different shells and types of stones you can find at the beach. Turn your beach walk into a "fossil" hunt or look for different shaped objects on the beach
Encourage your child to collect one type of natural object, e.g. shells, pine cones, stones, birds' feathers
Collect pine cones (great for the fire or for display!)
See how many different insects you can find on a walk or in the garden
Give your child a little notebook and have them put together nature picturegrams: against headers e.g. bird / tree / flower / insect / shell, they have to draw one on the row each time they spot one.
Ask your child to sketch a plant in the garden or woods or park. Ask them to think about things like what shape are the leaves? what texture? are the edges of the leaves smooth or serrated? how many leaves does the plant have? what colour are the leaves (and flowers)
Make a whistle from a blade of grass. Put your thumbs together with the blade of grass between them. Blow into the gap between your thumbs and you should hear a whistle, if not, just adjust the blade
Look for life inside an old log or underneath stones. Magnifying glasses are handy for this activity, you can pick these up in toy shops.
Hang a bird feeder in the garden and watch for different bird types that appear
Make daisy chains: pick daisies trying to make sure the stems are as long as possible. Make a small hole with your finger nail along the stem and thread another daisy's stem through the hole. Make a hole in the stem of the 2nd daisy and thread in the stem of a 3rd daisy and so on.