11 Creative Ways to Learn Outdoors while Exploring

Learning occurs in so many places other than a classroom. That is how it should be. Take the non-traditional route, bring your child outside and start learning outdoors with these great activities.

I hate teaching my son with activity books. The activity books are great when practicing writing, but even then, there are many other activities I choose to use versus activity books.

Learning outside is great for all of us. The benefits of getting outside are…

• We’re learning about nature while learning basic lessons taught in school. (2 birds, 1 stone!)
• You get to be in the natural light taking in Vitamin D.
• It’s hands-on experience.
• You don’t have to worry about making a mess.
• Your child begins to develop a love for nature.
• Nature is always changing so there’s always something you can learn or use.
• Best of all, the activities learning outdoors can be done for free.

 

Here are 11 great, interactive activities to start learning outdoors:

1. Collect rain water in a cup.

   • Measure how much there is (working on fractions)
   • Examine how clean or dirty the water is. (Put a coffee filter on the top of a cup, compare the filtered rain water vs unfiltered)

2. Pull weeds in the garden.

   • Examine the root system and how plants get water.
   • You could also discuss how there are a lot to living things that we don’t see with our eyes. That are hidden underneath the surface. We can’t judge people on what we see on the outside because we don’t know what we can’t see.

3. Plant a seed.

   • Experiment with your seeds.
     • Water one plant and put milk in the other.
     • Put one in the sun and the other not.

4. Examine the clouds or stars.

   My son’s favorite thing to do is lay in the hammock discussing random thoughts and ideas.

   • Work on creativity and imagine what the clouds feel like or look like.
   • See if you can find the moon.
   • Discuss the Earth and other planets.
   • Discuss the seasons and how the Earth changes as you watch the clouds move in the sky.
   • While laying in the grass or hammock examining the clouds, you can discuss the different animals that fly/swim/have fur/have feathers/any category you can think of!

5. Collect rocks

   • Discuss how different each rock is.
     • Which rock is bigger/smaller/weighs more or less
     • The colors of the rocks
     • Count them
     • Put them in different shapes
   • Try stacking the rocks and balancing them.

6. Go on a hunt for a caterpillar.

   • Discuss the process of turning into a butterfly. (Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar)

7. Go on a nature scavenger hunt.

   • Sign up for the kids’ activities Book and get access to my FREE scavenger hunt printable!
   • Make your own scavenger hunt with colors or other objects

8. Examine the density of objects in the pool or bucket of water.

   • Have your child predict if an object will float or sink. Depending on your child’s level, you can discuss why the object floats or sinks.

9. Have a picnic outside.

   • Cut food into fractions or count the pieces

10. Collect leaves from different trees.

    • Discuss how different each leaf is and correlate that with people.

11. Use sidewalk chalk on your driveway/sidewalk.

    • Work on colors
    • Play hopscotch with different letters/sight words/numbers.
    • Draw numbers on the ground and collect that many objects.
    • Make a chart on the ground with the objects you find to determine which object is the most/middle/least.
    • Make a clock on the ground with sticks as the minute hand and hour hands to practice telling time.
    • Do math problems outside on the ground.

Final Thoughts…

There are many ways children can learn outdoors. Get outside with your kids and start exploring. You’ll likely “accidentally” begin learning lessons students usually learn in a classroom.