We’ve said it before, and it’s worth saying again, “You don’t have to travel far for big adventures!” Discover the boundless wonders awaiting you right in your own backyard as we embark on a journey to uncover why our local state parks stand as the ultimate destinations for unforgettable family experiences. From enchanting day trips that captivate young minds to rejuvenating vacations that reconnect the family spirit, and exhilarating camping escapades that nurture a love for the outdoors – our state parks promise a tapestry of exploration and bonding, making them an ideal canvas for fostering togetherness and sowing the seeds of a lifelong affinity for the natural world. Join us today, as Katie Fox, North Carolina teacher and mom of two (and visitor to 50+ state parks across the US), delves into the myriad reasons why state parks are treasured landscapes tailor-made for creating timeless moments and instilling a sense of wonder in the hearts of both young and old.
State park adventures with kids
Planning a family trip can be a difficult, yet rewarding, task full of possibilities for fun, adventure, and relaxation. Whether you are planning a day trip, weekend adventure, or full-on family vacation, state parks make perfect destinations. In a world brimming with bustling cities and digital distractions, state parks serve as natural havens and offer an idyllic escape where parents, children, and adventurers of all ages can forge lasting memories amidst the embrace of Mother Nature. Not only are state parks all over every state in the US, and each one completely unique, but they offer so many different activities (many free!) that there is bound to be something for everyone in your family. They are a great place to explore with kids!
While the allure of national parks and bustling tourist hotspots is undeniable, there’s an often overlooked gem right in your local vicinity – state parks. These hidden treasures offer a unique and distinct charm that sets them apart from their grander counterparts. Choosing to visit a state park in your area holds a myriad of advantages that promise a more intimate, authentic, and immersive experience
There are over 10,000 state park-operated natural areas and 2,474 official state parks in the United States and every single state has more than one. Wyoming has the least state parks (with 11), while New York has 164 state parks! Every other state falls somewhere in between. This means, there is very likely a state park (or several) near you to explore!
And if you are like many families, you select your adventure destinations carefully because vacation days and weekend hours are in limited supply. You want everyone to enjoy the experience, and you want them to remember the trip fondly. This is a lot of pressure, but visiting state parks with kids pretty much guarantees your trip isn’t wasted!
Why? Because there are so many things to do, and almost all of the experiences are free or inexpensive. There is very likely something at a local state park near you for everyone in your family, making them a great spot for all-family fun.
Plus, while state parks are gaining in popularity, especially after the pandemic, they are still not as busy as National Parks (and usually much easier to access). Say goodbye to crowded attractions and long lines, and instead, embrace the tranquility of lesser-known trails, the warmth of local hospitality, and the joy of discovering a slice of nature that feels like a well-kept secret. By opting for a state park adventure, you’re nurturing a deeper connection to nature near you, supporting local conservation efforts, and savoring the satisfaction of exploring a destination that’s as unique and diverse as the region it (and you) calls home.
Activities available in state parks
While some state parks are designed to show off the main attractions, state parks usually offer a wide array of activities that cater to various interests and ages, making them perfect destinations for outdoor enthusiasts, families, and solo travelers alike. While every state park is unique and will offer particular activities based on the amenities and features of the park, here are some activities you can enjoy in most/many state parks:
Hiking: State parks often feature a network of well-maintained hiking trails that range from easy strolls to challenging hikes, allowing you to explore diverse landscapes, from lush forests to rugged mountains. It is almost guaranteed there will be at least one hiking trail to explore, and there is almost always one or more that are perfect for kids. Some parks have guided nature trails, great overlooks, waterfalls, swimming holes, and more that are great for little hikers.
Picnicking: Pack a delicious meal and enjoy a leisurely picnic surrounded by the beauty of nature. Many state parks provide designated picnic areas or pavillions with tables, grills, and scenic views.
Camping: Experience the joy of sleeping under the stars by camping in state park campgrounds. Whether you prefer tent camping or RV camping, state parks offer a range of camping options. Some state parks even offer cabins, hotel-type lodging, or homes for rent.
Wildlife viewing: State parks are home to a variety of wildlife species. Bring your binoculars and camera to observe birds, mammals, and other creatures in their natural habitats. Check out the visitor center in the state park to get a list of what wildlife is in the area.
Fishing: Many state parks have lakes, rivers, and ponds where you can cast your line and enjoy fishing. Check local regulations and guidelines before you start fishing. Some states parks even have loaner fishing gear (rods, reels, tackle, etc.) that you can check-out and use for the day.
Swimming: If your state park has a lake, creek, stream, or beach, swimming can be a refreshing way to beat the heat during the summer months. Just make sure to check the state park website to ensure swimming is allowed before you go and if there is a fee.
Canoeing, kayaking, SUP: If there’s a water body within the park, you might have the opportunity to rent a canoe, kayak, or stand-up paddleboard along serene waters. Some state parks have local outfitters where you can rent kayaks/canoes/SUPs for the day (or by the hour).
Photography: Capture the beauty of nature, scenic vistas, and wildlife through your camera lens. State parks provide an abundance of photo-worthy moments.
Geocaching: Embark on a modern-day treasure hunt by participating in geocaching, a GPS-based activity that involves finding hidden containers (caches) using coordinates.
Nature walks: Many state parks offer guided nature walks led by park rangers, where you can learn about the local flora, fauna, and ecosystems.
Waterfalls: If you have a waterfall-loving child (or any family member), many state parks have waterfalls for you to find. Often these trails, especially when they are easier hikes or when swimming is allowed, are very busy trails. And busy trails often mean busy parking, so try to plan accordingly.
Rock climbing: Some state parks have designated rock climbing areas for both beginners and experienced climbers to challenge themselves and enjoy breathtaking views from the top.
Biking: Explore trails on two wheels by bringing your bike. Many state parks have biking trails that cater to different skill levels, including mountain biking.
Enjoy the nature around you: No matter which state park you visit, even if it is dedicated to local human history, there will be nature around you. It would be virtually impossible to avoid seeing nature at a state park but take a moment (or several) to sit and really watch the nature around you. See an ant? Watch what it does. Listen to the birds, cicadas, frogs, coyotes, and the wind in the trees. Look for lightning bugs at dusk or stay up and check out the night sky with less light pollution. Nature is all around you, you might as well enjoy it!
Interpretive programs: Participate in educational programs, workshops, and guided tours led by park rangers to learn about the park’s history, geology, and cultural significance.
Stargazing: State parks often provide a darker, less light-polluted environment, making them ideal spots for stargazing and observing celestial events.
Relaxation: Sometimes, the best activity in a state park is simply unwinding and enjoying the serenity of nature. Bring a book, practice yoga, or simply soak in the peaceful atmosphere.
Remember to check the specific offerings and regulations of the state park you plan to visit, as activities may vary depending on location and season.
Finding the perfect state park to explore is easy!
If you are not picky about activity and simply want to explore a state park, simply pick one close to you. You will feel more comfortable and confident if you are new to exploring state parks with kids if you are closer to home. Plus, this option means the excursion is a day trip and makes planning and preparing easier.
If you have a particular activity you want to do, find a state park that offers some or all of those activities. Most states have websites for their state parks that list outdoor activities that can be done in each park. Some are very straightforward with how you can search by activity, some you have to dig a bit to find the right page, and others offer fun ways to give you the information (like Georgia providing a quiz to find the perfect park for your personality).
For instance, if you want to see a waterfall, you can use the state’s state park website to search for parks that have those options. If you’re into hiking, look for a state park with miles of trails for you to explore. Interested in horseback riding or soaking in hot springs? See if that’s an option! From sandy beaches to rock climbing, state parks have a lot to offer and are the perfect place to try something new with kids!
If you really cannot find what you are looking for on the state park website, you can always google the activity, your state, and the words ‘state park’ and see what the internet has to share.
Deciding when to visit a state park
Picking the best time to visit a state park is also pretty easy. It is all about doing a little research to ensure your trip includes everything you want.
If you have limited time and weekends and holidays are when you are available, obviously go when it is easiest for you. These are often the busiest times for state parks (and outdoor adventures in general), but the experiences are still worth the parks being a bit more crowded.
But even if time is not an issue for you, some parks are simply prettier, more accessible, and more comfortable during certain times of the year. Determining the best time to visit a state park near you involves considering factors such as weather, seasonal activities, crowds, and your personal preferences.
Start by researching the state park you’re interested in visiting. Look for information on the park’s official website, visitor’s center, or guidebooks. Learn about the park’s unique features, attractions, and activities that are available throughout the year.
Consider the weather and climate of the area. Different seasons offer different experiences and activities. Determine if the park has a peak tourist season, when it’s busiest, and an off-peak season, when there are fewer visitors. Visiting during the off-peak season might mean fewer crowds and a more tranquil experience. Also, check if the park hosts any special events, festivals, or programs throughout the year. These events can enhance your experience and provide unique opportunities to engage with the park’s offerings.
If the park offers camping or lodging, check if you need to make advance reservations. Some popular parks fill up quickly, especially during peak seasons. You may need to book campsites well in advance of your trip, but not always! Also, be aware of the park’s opening and closing times, as well as any seasonal road closures or restrictions that might affect your visit.
Consider the activities you’re interested in and when they are available. If you like fall leaves, there are quite a few state parks when fall would be an ideal time to visit. Love swimming in the pools or boating? Then summer is likely to be the best time to explore. If you are really into spring flowers, waterfalls, or mushrooms, then you need to look into when those are abundant at the state park you are interested in. If you want to experience snow or avoid snow altogether, then you need to consider these factors when you are planning which state park to visit. And some parks close all or some of their trails during the winter due to snow, so there are small windows of opportunity to hike these areas.
In other words, once you pick the park you want to visit, find the time of year that will suit your family best! It sounds more difficult than it is. There are very few parks that are likely to be closed completely, and even if the park has fewer visitors in the summer due to heat or fewer visitors in the winter because of snow, there will often still be something to do, learn, and explore.
Every state park is different, and each has its own activities to enjoy, but all have at least a couple of the following activities for your family to experience. To know exactly what is available at the state park you are interested in visiting, check out their website.
Stop by the visitor center
This is one of the very first things to do when you get to a state park! The visitor center often has some sort of informational display that is sure to teach your family something new. Plus, this is where you can chat with Park Rangers, grab junior ranger books, and find amenities.
Get your passport stamped
Many states have passport books available (either for free or for purchase) that you can take to each state park you visit to get a stamp. Some passport books include information on each state park, maps, etc. Include the date you visited and see how many stamps you can get!
See about a junior ranger program
If your children are interested in earning a badge or small souvenir, see if the state park has a junior ranger program. Many have this program, and they are often similar to the National Park Junior Ranger program, but each state park and state does it differently. This program is perfect for kids to learn all about the local plants, animals, and history, as well as reinforce responsible outdoor etiquette. And even if there isn’t a junior ranger program, many state parks will have something for kids to complete, like a nature bingo board specific to the park.
Learn about local history
Many state parks share local human history, folklore, and local historic sites in some capacity. Often there are displays, self-guided museum tours, interactive exhibits, and more to share this history with visitors. And if a Junior Ranger program is available, local history is often included in the materials, so even if you do not have a ton of time, you may still be able to read about some of the history.
Wildlife encounters
State parks provide a front-row seat to wildlife spectacles. Kids can marvel at the elegance of a soaring hawk, the playfulness of squirrels, or the gentle rustle of a rabbit in the underbrush. Maybe you’ll see deer, bald eagles, or moose. Maybe your kids will catch a crawdad in the creek or a catfish in the lake. These close encounters foster empathy and respect for all living creatures, encouraging children to develop a sense of responsibility toward their fellow inhabitants of the Earth.
Visiting local state parks is an enriching journey that fosters a profound connection between kids, families, and the natural world that envelops their own communities. These parks serve as immersive classrooms, where children can discover the intricate dance of nature and wildlife, leading to a heightened appreciation for their local environment and a deep-seated love for the planet as a whole.
State parks offer an interactive platform for kids to engage in hands-on learning. As families explore winding trails, vibrant meadows, and serene lakes, children encounter ecosystems teeming with life. They witness the delicate balance of flora and fauna, learning about the role of plants in oxygen production, the significance of pollinators, and the interdependence of different species.
Witnessing the splendor of state parks, families come to understand the significance of conservation efforts in their area. Kids learn about the importance of preserving these havens for future generations, prompting them to become stewards of their local environment. Planting the seeds of ecological awareness early in life can lead to a lifelong commitment to sustainability.
Visiting state parks helps children see themselves as part of a larger ecological tapestry. By observing the delicate balance of ecosystems, families develop a holistic understanding of how their actions can impact the environment. This awareness lays the foundation for responsible decision-making and a sense of accountability for the planet’s well-being.
Tips and tricks for exploring state parks with kids
Visiting state parks, or really adventuring anywhere with kids, often goes more smoothly if you have some tips and tricks to help you and your family along. There is really no wrong way to explore a state park with your kids, but you never know when you may need one or more of the following ideas while out exploring.
Plan ahead
See what activities are available at the state park and make a list of what you want to do while you are there.
Check to see if they have a state park junior ranger program and check to see if there are any age restrictions to make sure your kids can participate.
Look at the available trail maps found on the state park website. Once you find one (or five) you want to check out, use a trial app to see which ones are best for your family. Trail apps show you pictures and offer reviews, which may give you a better sense of what the trail is like.
Check prices and times for entry, rentals, tours, etc. This way you know when you need to be there.
Be prepared
Bring extra water, just in case there isn’t any available at the state park (there usually is, but you can’t be too prepared).
Bring bug spray and sunscreen because you never know what you may encounter.
Have an alternate plan in place just in case the trail you want is closed, boat rentals are sold out, or tours are full. Nature isn’t predictable and crowded days at the park happen. Having a backup plan ensures your family will still have a good time!
Grab a trail map at the visitor center and have the trails saved and easily to find in a trail app. You never know when you may need to look at the map. Plus, having the trail map can also come in handy if your child needs a distraction and loves to help.
Make it fun
Sometimes (all the time?), exploring with kids is hard. They complain, fall down, get bored, etc. and it can make the experience less fun. One way to help make exploring more enjoyable for all is to have a couple of tricks up your sleeve to make the adventure fun again. One favorite is to play Would You Rather. It takes no preparation and distracts kids while they walk or experience the park. For more hiking tips and a longer list of hiking games, check out A Beginner’s Guide to Hiking with Kids.
Bring a fun snack along to share at some point during your state park adventure. Maybe once you reach the midpoint or end of your hike or once your kids finish their Junior Ranger activities. The point is to share something special with them and enjoy it as a family.
Make a family goal to visit all the state parks in your state
We all make some variation of adventure goals. Whether your goal is to get outside more, hike more miles, try new outdoor adventures with your kids, or get out of your comfort zone a bit, state parks are perfect for helping you achieve your goal. In fact, you can set a goal (like getting outside more) and also begin working toward visiting all the state parks in your state.
Doing your own state park challenge is really a perfect outdoor adventure goal, even if you live in New York and visiting 164 state parks seems daunting. First of all, there is no time limit, so you can do this over the course of years! You can make it as easy or challenging as you want and totally set your own rules. Maybe you want to do one hike in each park you visit. Maybe you want to spend at least one-night camping in all the largest state parks. Chances are you’ve already visited one or two nearby state parks already, or live close to one that it will be easy to visit, so you can get started right away!
Tips for doing a state park challenge
If you want to participate in a state park challenge (visit all the state parks in your state), here are some tips and ideas to help you get started. Again there is no right or wrong way to visit a state park, and doing all of these ideas is not ideal. Pick one or two (or create your own) and do what works best for your family!
Start with a list of state parks
Make a list of all the state parks in your state, print it out, and have your children help check them off each time you visit one. Some states already have these in printable form, but it is easy enough to grab all the official state parks off your state’s state park website.
If you want to go the extra mile, check Etsy for printable state park checklists. There are some really beautiful state park checklists/maps. You could print a large map of your state and let the kids check off each park you visit.
Set your rules
Set criteria for what your family will count as completing a state park. Do you have to hike a trail, complete the junior ranger program, go camping, buy a magnet or postcard, stargaze, learn something, etc. This is just a fun way to get some buy-in from your family.
Sometimes having a consistent activity to complete in order to mark something off helps get everyone excited. Keep in mind, some parks are much smaller than others and may not have your requirement, so make sure there is some flexibility in your plan.
Create a plan
Create a planning list and make sure to include distance, entry fee, and available lodging. Which state parks do you want to visit first? Some may require quite a bit of driving (and a longer amount of time), so plan accordingly. Maybe there are a few close together that you can visit on the same trip? This list will help you know which state parks are day trips and which are further away and will require more planning (and possibly advance reservations).
Run Wild My Child has two Creative Team Members that have been working toward this goal. Here are some tips and tricks from them.
Kristen Ryan’s tips for doing a state park challenge
Kristen Ryan has visited 30 out of the 38 State Parks in Oklahoma
“We love to camp and hike but can’t always make it too far from home with little kids, dogs to take care of, and day jobs. Years ago, we started fitting in quick weekend getaways to adventure and explore our home state. As we began exploring different places, it soon became a goal to hit all the state parks in Oklahoma.
Our state has a passport activity book for kids where they can collect stickers at each state park they visit. They loved to be able to fill their books with new stickers at each new place explored. It helps get them excited at the idea of visiting new places.
We started small, looking for close by state parks to go hiking on a free day. On the weekends that we wanted more of an adventure, we would search out the further away parks where we could camp. One spring break, we decided to make a weeklong trip of it and went to the furthest away state park in Oklahoma, Black Mesa State Park. A beautiful area far from any close by town/city. Then, we worked our way back, hitting as many state parks as we could along the way. This was a fun way to turn it into a bigger adventure and camp at a variety of parks, seeing what each one had to offer. My kids still talk about that trip.
I think it is so interesting to see what hidden gems you can find in your own state. We are lucky in the sense that Oklahoma is very vast in its geography. Depending on where you are in the state, we have everything from plateaus, forests, rivers, high plains, grasslands, caves, sand dunes, lakes, and rolling hills. There is so much to see and learn. My family loves to talk about what has been our favorite park so far and our favorite places to hike or camp. Now, we are mostly left with a majority of the lake state parks on the east side of the state. These are great ones to hike at and then end the day with some water fun to cool down.
I highly suggest checking out your local state parks, even if it’s a long drive just to hike for the day. Make it an adventure, come back for a picnic, or stay for a sunset. Let the kids lead the way on your hike. You never know what kinds of great memories you will make along the way. I love those days when we really don’t have an agenda other than to be outside, and what better way than to explore where you live?”
Meghan Garriott’s tips for doing a state park challenge
Meghan Garriot and her family are not only trying to visit every official state park, but every state park-operated natural area and recreation area as well. They have visited 29 so far in Illinois.
“In 2021, my kids and I started our Illinois State Park Challenge. I bought a book with all the Illinois state parks and began looking at the map. I was surprised to see how many parks were close by that I had not only never been to, but had also never known were there!
By the end of 2021, we had visited 20 Illinois state parks together. Most of the parks we hiked at and played on the playgrounds, but there were a few we stopped to picnic at or stretch our legs at on our way to another destination.
Our State Park Challenge comes with no rules or end date, just a satisfying check in the box after visiting each one. We want to keep it simple and fun for our whole family. Visiting these parks is a fun way to prioritize local travel and visit places we often overlook.
As an added bonus, Illinois state parks are free to enter, so it’s a great way to spend some time with family without traveling too far and without spending much money. Throughout our challenge, we have come across so many places we likely would have never visited but now enjoy often. Each park has something new to offer, and it’s been fun learning as we go.
Some parks have great camping, others are better for fishing, and some have awesome bike trails. Through our state park challenge, we stumbled upon a sailing association at Eldon Hazlet state park, which led to my son’s first overnight camp experience, which was a sailing camp!
If you find yourself looking for something to do on a beautiful day, try visiting one of these local parks. They might surprise you with a fun day you didn’t know you were missing!”
The impact of visiting state parks
Visiting local state parks has a ripple effect that extends far beyond the park boundaries, contributing to the support of the local community, boosting tourism, and aiding in conservation efforts in your area. Here’s how:
Economic impact
When families and visitors frequent local state parks, they often spend money on various goods and services within the surrounding communities. This includes purchases such as meals at local restaurants, accommodations at nearby hotels or campgrounds, supplies from local stores, and even fees for guided tours or recreational activities. This infusion of funds helps stimulate the local economy, supports small businesses, and generates jobs.
Tourism promotion
State parks serve as magnets for tourists seeking immersive outdoor experiences. As word spreads about the beauty and attractions of these parks, more visitors are drawn to the area. This heightened tourism not only brings direct revenue but also encourages the development of tourism-related infrastructure, such as improved roads, better signage, and new recreational opportunities. Communities can capitalize on this increased interest by offering additional attractions and events, further enhancing the region’s appeal.
Conservation funding
Many state parks rely on visitor fees and permits to fund their operations and conservation efforts. When families visit these parks, the revenue generated often goes directly towards maintaining trails, protecting habitats, and supporting wildlife conservation initiatives. By contributing to these efforts, visitors play a crucial role in preserving the natural beauty and biodiversity of the area for future generations.
Outdoor/nature education
State parks often provide educational programs, guided tours, and workshops for visitors of all ages. These experiences not only enrich the lives of those who participate but also foster a greater understanding of the local ecosystem and the importance of conservation. This knowledge can inspire individuals to become advocates for environmental protection and make more sustainable choices in their daily lives.
Local pride
A vibrant state park can become a source of local pride and identity. As a resident of the state, you may develop a strong attachment to your favorite local state park (we hope you do!), recognizing it as a valuable asset that sets your area apart. This sense of pride can lead to increased civic engagement and a collective commitment to preserving the natural beauty and cultural heritage of the region. And living in a place that you are proud of and love can have a significant impact on your mood, attitude, and overall mental health. When you feel connected to your surroundings, it can provide a sense of security, belonging, and fulfillment. Furthermore, when you are happy with your surroundings, it can help to reduce stress levels and alleviate anxiety.
As parents, we have the power to kindle a lifelong passion for nature within our children, to witness their eyes light up as they encounter the wonders of the wild, and to instill in them a profound sense of wonder and appreciation for the world right outside their doorstep. Visiting local state parks is a great way to do this. The journey awaits, and the time to embark on exploring your area is now – for every step taken within the embrace of nature brings your family one step closer to understanding, cherishing, and safeguarding the beauty that resides in your own backyard. State parks are beautiful, offer so much to do, are great for families to explore together, and can not only give you a guide for vacation destinations but are budget friendly too! You never know what you’re going to find or what adventures are to be had at a state park near you.
Which state park will you explore next with your kids?
About the author
Katie is a full-time teacher and mom of two, located in North Carolina. Katie explores as much as possible, with a particular fondness for the adventures her family enjoys in state and national parks. When not trekking through the outdoors, Katie enjoys baking, consuming mochas from local coffee shops across the continent, practicing her photography skills, and soaking up as much knowledge as she can.
As an advocate for families exploring the great outdoors, Katie co-founded a Hike it Baby branch in her hometown in Northern California and tries to encourage families to get outside whenever possible. Katie has a Master’s degree in human development from the University of Missouri, Columbia, but her passion is really history and humanities (which is coincidentally what her Bachelor’s degrees are in).
You can find more from Katie online in the following locations:
Instagram: @hiking.motherhood
RWMC posts: Katie Fox
A new year is right around the corner and many parents make a resolution to spend more time outside with their kids. Spending time outside together can be fun, easy, and super beneficial for both the kids and the grown-ups! If getting outside more often with your kids is a goal for you this year, start the year off right and spend New Year’s Day outside! Today, Katie Fox, full-time RV-roadschooling mom of two, is here with all kinds of fun and easy outdoor New Year’s Day activities for kids and families. She’ll help you make outdoor time a priority for your family this year by setting your intention on the first day of the year!
New year, new start
With each new year that comes around, people plan to do things a little bit differently. You can call these changes for the year resolutions, intentions, goals, promises, or even simply plans. The point of them is to focus on something good, try something new, or do better than the year prior. We all want that. Especially, when it comes to raising our kids and doing what we feel is best for them.
Getting our children outside is one of those things that we all know is important. We know the benefits of spending time outside: in short, you get healthier, happier kids. Some families seem to always find the time to make outdoor time happen. But, most of us struggle to balance all the things we need to do each day, and getting our kids outdoors ends up falling to the wayside.
Don’t worry! If spending more time outside with your family is something you’d like to try doing in the new year, we’re here to help!
Commit to spending New Year’s Day outside with your kids
You can absolutely make it a goal (or whatever form of new years resolution you prefer) to spend more time outside with your kids. In fact, I encourage you to set an intention for the entire year with action – by beginning the new year outside with your kids. That’s right – let’s go outside this New Year’s Day!
We’d love it if you’d join us in starting the new year out with action that matches the goal you’d like to achieve. Spend new year’s day outside with your kids and start the year on the proverbial right foot. Not only will this reinforce your commitment to spending more time outside, but it’ll show your kids you mean it and give you a jump start on the new year in a fun and refreshing way!
Below, you will find a variety of ways to spend the first day of the year outside as a family. Not only are there many different outdoor New Year’s Day activities for kids, but I’ve also included a few outdoor and family-focused Run Wild My Child challenges you can sign-up for!
Let’s kick this year off right and enjoy the great outdoors with our families!
Outdoor New Year’s Day activities
New Year’s day is the perfect time to spend quality time together as a family, and there are so many ways to spend the day outside with your kids. Here are some simple and fun outdoor New Year’s Day activities for Kids. I’ve included lots of examples to help you find the perfect way to embrace your desire to be outdoors and spend more time together with your kids.
First-day hike
Have you heard of the concept of a first-day hike? This themed hike is exactly what it sounds like — a hike you do on the first day of the year! It is so easy to implement and completely customizable to fit your family’s needs. All you do is pick a trail (it can be new to you or a family favorite) and hike it together as a family. If you’re looking for a new hike, check out the All Trails app and pick one in your area.
Never been hiking and want to give it a try? The first day of the year is the perfect time to explore this activity as a family. Hiking is much easier to do than it might sound. You don’t need much to get started and you’ll get to spend some quality time outside with your little ones. Need some tips on hiking? Our website is full of hiking tips for families.
Play outside together
Outdoor New Year’s Day activities don’t have to be elaborate. Simple play is more beneficial for your kids than you can imagine. And when you play outside with your kids, you’re not only modeling, you’re making memories with them. There are so many fun ways to play and make that your outdoor New Year’s Day activity.
Whether you are wanting to spend more time together in the coming year or simply want to spend more time outside together, this list of 100+ Outdoor Winter Activities for Kids is sure to help you start the year on the right track. Pick any activity from the list (or let the kids pick one) and make it happen! There’s even a free printable checklist of all the activities you can print out, hang on the fridge and check off as you complete them!
Spending the first day of the year giving back to nature is the perfect way to begin the new year. Believe it or not, birds can struggle to find food in the winter months, so setting up bird feeders is a wonderful way to help them out. Not only that, but bird feeders also give you and your children the perfect opportunity to bird watch in your own yard. It’s a win, win!
Setting up a birdfeeder sounds simple (because it is), but it’s a great way to bring more nature to you! And maybe you didn’t know, but birds are fascinating to watch! Every day it’s like a mini soap opera at the feeders in the backyard. Here are some easy-to-make bird feeders you can try with your family.
Taking a walk together is a great outdoor New Year’s Day activity, and a wonderful way to set an outdoor intention for the year! It’s simple and it is such a great way to connect with your children. No planning, fancy gear, or expensive equipment needed!
Start a new tradition and make family walks through your neighborhood a daily or weekly occurrence in your family. Try going for a walk at the same time, like an evening walk after dinner. Not only will the schedule help to make it a habit, but it is also the perfect way to get out excess energy before bed. Plus, this time is a great way to let the daily frustrations go and spend quality time talking with your kids.
If you like the idea of jump-starting the new year by giving your heart and body a literal jumpstart, a polar bear plunge is perfect for you! The polar bear plunge gets its name from the fact that you jump into cold water, in the winter, and swim around – sort of like a polar bear. It’s a really exciting outdoor New Year’s Day activity to try with your kids!
There are official polar bear plunge events all over the world and participating in one of these is quite the experience. But, all you really need is some really cold water to jump or swim in. If you have an unheated pool, it will work perfectly. If you live near a lake or other natural body of water that is safe to swim in, jump on in and swim like a polar bear.
The best part? Kids are generally excited to participate and doing something once a year, even when it is super cold and sort of unpleasant, is a ton of fun. Just keep in mind even the best swimmers can struggle from the shock of the cold water, so plan ahead and make sure kids wear a flotation device. Also, make sure to have someone waiting with warm towels and piping hot cups of hot chocolate to warm you up after!
Partake in a fun run/walk
Fun runs are a great way to get outside and do something active on the first day of the year. Not only are most fun runs raising money for some organization, but you are also out and about with like-minded people. Fun runs are usually 5Ks (3.1 miles) and can be walked or run together as a family. Some places even offer 1 mile runs/races for kids. Check your local community for a new year’s themed fun run in your area.
If there are no organized runs near you, that’s ok! With so many things going virtual these last few years, fun runs have too! You can always opt to complete a virtual fun run and do it on your own time. There are a few options available for virtual fun runs/walks out there. Some of the proceeds from Medal Dash’s New Year’s virtual event go toward Make-A-Wish Foundation and Virtual Run offers a variety of themed run/walk options throughout the year, including a new year’s option.
Camping in the winter is totally a thing! If you already have camping gear and you want to do something different this year, consider ringing in the new year while camping! If sleeping in a tent in the cold is not something you are excited about, consider car camping with your kids. It’s exactly what it sounds like –camping in your car with as many pillows and blankets as you can bring! Want something a bit easier, how about glamping? Book a cabin in the woods or a yurt somewhere and wake up immersed in nature!
If you don’t know much about camping and want to give it a try for the new year, this ultimate guide to camping with kids is sure to be helpful.
Try something new
What better way to start the new year than to try something new outside!? It can be literally anything, so your options are endless! Think about it — what’s something that you’ve been wanting to try/do with the kids, but just haven’t (for whatever reason). Now is the perfect time!
Don’t have an idea of your own? We’re here to help. Take a look at the RWMC 100+ outdoor winter activities for kids and pick one your family has never done before and give it a go. What have you got to lose? (You might even love it and have fun!)
Your outdoor New Year’s Day activity could be charitable, beneficial, and educational. Giving back to your community and nature on the first day of the year is such a wonderful thing and can be done in a variety of ways. There may be some organized volunteer opportunities already planned for new year’s day that you can sign up to participate in. Check in with your local environmental group, community garden, school, conservation department, nature center, or other organizations you want to support in your area. If you don’t know where to start, this post about volunteering with kids may be useful.
Grab the bikes/scooters and helmets and enjoy time together on a leisurely ride through your neighborhood or along your favorite bike trail. Bike and scooter rides are two really fun and easy outdoor New Year’s Day activities for kids of all ages. If you (parent) don’t all have a set of wheels, no worries! Kids love to be chased by and race the grownups in their lives. The point is to all go out and enjoy the outdoors together on the first day of the year. Making a point to do something your kids enjoy, will help them want to repeat the activity with you in the future!
Another way to give back to nature is to spend some time on new years day picking up trash and cleaning up nature. You can simply do it while you walk through your neighborhood or along a hiking or biking trail.
If you want to spend more time giving back in the new year, consider trying to organize a small group of friends with kids and pick up trash at the local park. After your kid’s tire of picking up all the tiny micro-trash pieces they see (or is it just my kids that zero in on the tiny pieces?), set them loose on the playground. Not only are you spending time with friends and family on the first day of the year, but you are giving back in a great way too.
Go birding
Is nature something you want to spend more time exploring this year? Then give birding a try. Birding just means watching the birds out and about in nature. Again, there’s no special gear or equipment needed. You just need curiosity and a vivid imagination so you can make up fun stories about the birds!
Winter is a great time to sit and watch the birds because the trees are bare and the birds are easy to spot. Level up your nature exploring by bringing along a bird identification book or download a birding app and see if you and your kids can identify some of the birds you see. This helps build observation skills in your kids. They have to pay attention to the color, size, markings, chirps, and song of the bird to identify it.
Maybe it is raining or snowing on new year’s day and so getting outside together doesn’t seem like a feasible option. Guess what? It totally is! There is no such thing as bad weather, right?!
If it isn’t storming and it is safe to go outside, go! Be sure to bundle up, put on rain jackets, boots, mittens, or any other weather-appropriate clothing. Then, let your children explore this “less than pleasant” weather with you. Puddles are a blast on their own, but there is also something magical about running through puddles while it is raining. Same with the playing in the snow. There is just something about water (frozen or not) falling from the sky that makes winter outdoor activities more whimsical. You don’t have to stay outside for long, but if getting outside more in the new year is something you want to do, don’t let cold and wet weather slow you down!
The great thing about playing outside during weather like this is that you’re teaching/showing your children that they don’t have to wait for a warm sunny day to get outside and play. You’re teaching them resilience and grit. You’re showing them that there’s beauty and joy in all seasons. These are lifelong lessons that will help them get outside year-round.
Getting outside does not need to be a big event. Outdoor New Year’s Day activities can be as simple as going out in your backyard. If you want to spend more time together outside, it’s ok to start small. Play with chalk, blow bubbles, build a snowman or throw snowballs at each other, play tag or hide and seek, dance in the rain, or play together with your kid’s toys. It really is that easy.
Participate in a challenge
If you are looking for ways to hold yourself accountable in the new year, Run Wild My Child has created some easy and fun challenges to help you get outside and connect with your children. Not only are these challenges a great way to kick off the new year, but they will help inspire you all year long! These challenges can be done any time, with kids of any age, no matter where you live!
52 Outdoor Family Adventure Challenge
This is a simple freechallenge you get in one little printable PDF. The idea is to complete one single outdoor activity with your kids each week of the year. Do you think you can do it?
The PDF offers a seasonally appropriate outdoor activity option to complete each week of the year, but the list is just a guide. If the chosen activity doesn’t work for you, just pick another! The point is for you and your kids to get outside together once a week, everything else is just a bonus!
Now more than ever, kids need face-to-face uninterrupted time with their grownups. If finding time to spend with your kids is difficult or if you want to focus on connecting with your children on a deeper level, the free10-day Intentional 10 Challenge is for you!
Once you sign up, you will receive 10 daily emails with different ways to spend 10 meaningful minutes with your kids for 10 days. That’s it! Surely you can commit to 10 minutes a day? That’s all it takes to make a huge difference!
Our Wildhood Challenge is designed to “rewild” your child with simple outdoor activities built around a daily theme. This 7-day challenge comes in the form of an e-book and shares so many easy ways to explore nature and get outside with your kids. Tons of great outdoor activity ideas that can be done with kids of all ages. It is perfect for parents who want to rewild their child and just need a little help doing it.
Katie lives in a tiny home on wheels and travels full-time with her two mostly wild children, tech-minded partner, two well-traveled pups, and adopted pet snails. As they wander the North American continent, Katie explores as much as possible, with a particular fondness for the adventures her family enjoys in state and national parks. When not trekking through the outdoors, Katie enjoys baking, homeschooling, consuming mochas from local coffee shops across the continent, practicing her photography skills, and soaking up as much knowledge as she can.
As an advocate for families exploring the great outdoors, Katie co-founded a Hike it Baby branch in her hometown in Northern California and tries to encourage families to get outside whenever possible. Katie has a Master’s degree in human development from the University of Missouri, Columbia, but her passion is really history and humanities (which is coincidentally what her Bachelor’s degrees are in). She currently volunteers on the Hike it Baby National team as a contributing blogger.
You can find more from Katie online in the following locations:
Instagram: @familyinwanderland
RWMC posts: Katie Fox
Fall is the perfect time to get outside and have fun! The colorful changing fall leaves add an extra flair of excitement to the mix and create endless possibilities for outdoor fall leaf fun! Today, full-time RV mom of two, Katie Fox is here sharing all kinds of ways we can explore fall leaves and have fun (and maybe even learn something) while doing it! She’s sharing fall leaf craft ideas, fall leaf outdoor activities, science experiments, fall leaf jokes, books, and more! So, jump in our pile of fall leaf fun for kids! There’s room for all!
Fall leaf fun for kids
Fall arrives every year and demands our attention and awe with a beautiful display of colorful leaves. Children are particularly drawn to the vibrant colors of individual leaves and the tempting piles of leaves that can be found this time of year. The colors, sizes, and shapes ignite their imagination. Tap into this fascination and help your little nature explorers discover the magic of fall leaves.
Do you need some ideas on how to have fun with fall leaves with your kids? We’ve got you covered. This post is filled with clever craft ideas, science experiments, books, jokes, and more all about LEAVES!
Fall leaf crafts for kids
One great thing about fall leaves is that there is virtually an endless supply of them! And they’re completely free. That’s right as the beautifully colored leaves fall from the trees, you can gather them right on up and get your craft on with your kids.
There are so many fun fall leaf crafts to do and make with kids. We’ve included a few crafts below, but don’t stop with this list. Let your children’s imaginations run wild and find new and exciting ways to create fall leaves crafts and have fall leaf fun with kids.
Foster some creative play with fall leaf crowns. There are a few simple ways to make fall leaf crowns and because most fall leaves have varying shapes and colors, the crowns are bound to be absolutely beautiful.
Option 1: Upcycle a paper bag or scrap paper and cut a 3-5 inch wide strip in a length that will fit around your child’s head. If your paper isn’t long enough to fit around your child’s head, just cut as many as you need and tape, staple or glue them together to make the right length. Once you have the right length, glue or tape it together to create a paper crown. Then it is time to add all the beautiful leaves you collected. There is no wrong way to decorate these crowns with leaves. We used a stapler to adhere the leaves on the crowns featured in the photo above. Line up the leaves, tuck the bottoms/stems under the crown, and staple to secure! So easy, even kids can do it!
Option 2: Use duct tape to create a crown. To do this, you simply cut the duct tape in the length you need to fit around your child’s head with an inch or two extra to stick it together at the end. Lay it flat on your work surface, sticky side up. Help your child lay their fall leaves on the sticky tape, being careful not to let the tape stick to itself. Make sure to not stick leaves too close to the ends of the tape. Once your child is happy with the number of leaves, take match up the sticky ends of the tape, with the leaves on the outside of the crown.
Another fun way to encourage pretend outdoor play is by making a leaf fox tail (pictured above). Our friends at @unlocking.fun say you simply need leaves, some cardboard (upcycling a paper bag would work too), white paint, and string.
To make the fox tail shape, cut the cardboard in the shape you want. Then, paint the tip white, and then glue or tape leaves over the rest of the tail-shaped cardboard. Once it is dried, help your child add a string to the top of the tail and then tie it loosely around your child’s waist.
Dipping your fall leaves into beeswax is a wonderful way to preserve the colors of fall leaves. All you need is some plain beeswax, a way to melt it, some leaves to dip into it, and a place to let the leaves dry. It really is that easy, though it is also a bit messy when doing it with children, so prepare for a mess. Let the leaves dry on a large piece of wax paper to catch all the drippings. A nice thin coat should work just fine!
4. Fall leaf wall hanging
Need something to do with your preserved beeswax leaves? Or maybe you just have a ton of fall leaves scattered around your nature shelf or kitchen table. Make a fall leaf wall hanging with them! This is a beautiful way to keep them off the table and shelves, while also displaying them for all to see and admire.
All to need to do to make a wall hanging is to attach your leaves to a piece of string or twine. You can hang them all at various lengths from a longer branch or tie them all together and attach to a pinecone. Or, you could even thread them and make a colorful leaf garland for the mantle. If you preserve your leaves in beeswax, your wall hanging will last a long time. If you prefer to create it without preserving them, it will still last a couple of weeks.
5. Painted leaves and funny face leaves
Painting leaves is a neat way to use up all the fall leaves you collect, while also creating fun holiday-themed decorations. You can create ghosts and pumpkins with ease and oak leaves make excellent Christmas trees and reindeer. These painted fall leaves make excellent decorations and even a fun annual activity to add to your holiday decor.
You could also make funny faces on your leaves. Add expressions with paint or use stickers or googly eyes. Funny face leaves are so much fun to make and display. They could even be made into gifts! Paint, markers, cut-up leaves, googly eyes, crayons, construction paper, and pretty much any other craft supply you can think of would be perfect for creating these funny face fall leaves with kids.
6. Leaf masks
Leaf masks are another way to have fun with fall leaves. The masks can be as simple or as complicated as your children desire. Search for big leaves and simply cut eye holes into them and suddenly your child is camouflaged and can hide in plain sight. You could also use a variety of fall leaves to create elaborate masks with your kids. Create a mask shape with cardboard or a paper bag and then let your children glue the leaves on to create whimsical leaf masks.
7. Leaf confetti
Need something to keep little hands busy? Or are you needing confetti for an upcoming party or celebration? Fall leaves are perfect for making all-natural DIY biodegradable confetti! Plus, it is so very easy!
Hand your kids some dry fall leaves, scissors, and a hand-held hole punch. Let them cut up and punch holes in the leaves to their heart’s content. If you have decorative edge scissors, kids can experiment with how it makes the leaf confetti look too. This is a wonderful way to enjoy throwing confetti, but without using plastics and glitter, which are harmful to our planet and are typically found in store-bought confetti.
8. Pressed leaves
A lot of the fall leaves kids collect quickly begin to dry and curl at the edges. An easy way to prolong the life of a fall leaf is to press it. If you have a flower or leaf press, use it. Sticking the leaves in the pages of a book will do pretty much the same thing. Pro tip: If you use a book, be sure to put a piece of paper between the leaves and the book pages to protect the book. If the leaves were not entirely dry before being placed in the book, you may find unwanted mold.
9. Outdoor leaf art
While you are out exploring your neighborhood or local trail, gather some leaves with your kids. Once you have a few (or a ton), use them to create a work of art on the ground near where you found all the leaves. Make a heart, spiral, funny face, maze, a blob, a line, a giant number (for how old they are), or anything else you and your child can think up. Not only will your artwork brighten someone’s day, but the supplies were literally collected right there so cleanup is not required.
Ever heard of the book Leaf Man by Lois Elhert? The leaf art in this book is so wonderful and so much fun to try and create yourself. Creating leaf people and animals is a fun way to utilize fall leaves, while also incorporating family reading time. Bring the book outside and read it under a color fall tree and then collect some leaves to create your own leaf animals and people. You can try to recreate some of the scenes in the book or make up your own story.
11. Leaf lantern
With it getting dark earlier and the ground covered in fall leaves, there is no better time to make a fall leaf lantern with your kids. Check out this leaf lantern tutorial on how to do it. Use your leaf lantern to go for a night hike or even just a twilight stroll around your neighborhood. Making your own lantern will make any evening outing that much more fun and magical!
12. Leaf rubbings
This is probably an activity you are familiar with, but it is a classic for a reason. It is fun (and educational)! All you need to do to make leaf rubbings is put a piece of paper on top of a leaf and then rub the side of a crayon over the area of the leaf to make a rubbing of the leaf. You can try with different media (like oil pastels or colored pencils), experiment to see which colors work best, try out a variety of leaves, and see what several leaf rubbings look like together on one piece of paper. Once you have leaf rubbings, try identifying the leaves. Are they from a maple, oak, ash, aspen, dogwood, hawthorn? For extra credit, find the tree the leaf came from and make a bark rubbing as well! There are so many ways to take this classic activity and make it your own.
13. Leaf bookmarks
Looking for a fun craft that can also make the perfect gift? All you need is thick paper, leaves, and glue. You can use cardstock or upcycle paper bags, construction paper, or thin cardboard. Cut several rectangles in the general size of a standard bookmark (approximately 3 x 8 inches). Gather any fall leaves you want to use for your bookmarks and press them in a book or leaf press before you use them (see more on this below). Flat leaves are easier to glue down.
After you have your paper bookmarks and your pressed fall leaves, all you do is glue them onto the paper. The best way to do this is to have your kids paint the glue on. Then, glue the leaves onto the paper and then paint the glue over the top of the entire bookmark. Once they are dry, you can trim the edges or leave them how they turned out. They really do look beautiful no matter what!
If you have Modge Podge, this will work better at sealing the bookmarks to help preserve them.
Fall leaf activities for kids
Even if you are not feeling crafty, there are so many other ways to enjoy some fall leaf fun with kids! A lot of these activities are just good old-fashioned outdoor play! Here are a few of our favorite outdoor fall leaf fun ideas to get you started on your adventures.
1. Collect leaves
While out exploring nature in your local park or neighborhood simply collect some leaves. Some leaves are just begging to be admired! There are leaves that are mottled and polka-dotted. Some are so vibrant it’s crazy. Others look almost tie-dyed! You can collect one leaf that you found absolutely stunning. Or heck, collect a whole basketful! There is no wrong way to do it. Just make sure you have permission to collect them, as some parks (especially national parks) ask that you not collect any form of nature. You can put them in a collection bag, carry them or put them in a backpack to bring home and enjoy.
2. Rake leaves for a friend or neighbor
I always like adding a few acts of service/kindness to any seasonal activity list. A great way to pay-it-forward in the fall is to rake the leaves out of the yard of a friend or neighbor. If you have an elderly or disabled neighbor or just know someone that could use a few extra hands, send the kids over with the rakes and leaf blower to help out. Not only will they feel good about helping, but they can make piles of leaves and have fun in the process (see below). Join forces with other neighborhood families and your good deed will go even faster with extra fun and laughter!
3. Jump in a leaf pile
If your kids are little, rake a pile of leaves into a safe location for them. Make sure the ground underneath is relatively soft (grass, not concrete) and remove any long/sharp twigs, sticks or branches. And then, let them jump! If your kids are older, hand them the rake and put them to work making their own piles! Raking leaves is a great gross motor activity and good for coordination.
What to take it up a notch? Here are some other ways to make leaf raking and leaf piles extra fun for kids:
Make leaf raking a competition. Who can make the biggest pile the fastest? Ready, set, go!
Rake a pile of leaves into shapes (a number that represents their age, the year, or the grade they’re in) and take a photo of them next to the pile from above as a keepsake.
Take a photo of your child from above and try to capture the same shot year after year to document how much they’ve changed.
If you’ve got a large space, use the leaves to create a maze. Add obstacles and blocks that you have to go around. Or even a circular spiral leading to a prize (a giant leaf pile).
Make a leaf rainbow. Different trees make leaves of different colors. Sort your leaves into piles by color and then use them to make a rainbow!
The ground is lava! Instead of one big pile of leaves, make a bunch of smaller piles and let the kids jump from pile to pile without touching empty spaces.
3. Throw leaves in the air
Throwing leaves up into the air is a fun and super simple activity. It can also make for a great photo opportunity, though it can be hard to capture* sometimes. Plus, this activity couldn’t be any more simple. Gather some leaves, or better yet use an existing pile of leaves, and toss the leaves into the air. And yes, mom, YOU need to do it, too! It’s fun and you can do it until your kids tucker out or get bored.
*Pro tip: Make sure your shutter speed is quick and your depth of field isn’t too narrow or you’ll get a bunch of blurry and out-of-focus photos.
4. Go for a fall leaf walk
You do not have to collect leaves, craft, or do any sort of activity to enjoy fall leaves with your kids. Simply taking a fall hike is a great outdoor activity and a way to take advantage of the leaves. You can simply meader along a trail or through your neighborhood taking in the vibrant colors of the season. Hiking during the fall months is extra fun and beautiful! You usually don’t have to deal with the heat or mosquitoes, plus, there’s all that beautiful scenery to take in!
Lying under a tree is a great way to enjoy fall with your kids. This is an especially fun activity when there is a gentle breeze knocking the leaves off the trees. Watching the fall leaves flutter to the ground is relaxing. And if your child is bored or needs to burn energy, they can see how many leaves they can catch before they hit the ground.
Fall leaf science for kids
Just because we’re having some fall leaf fun, doesn’t mean we can learn while we’re at it! Fall leaf fun can be both a blast and educational. If you want to throw some learning into your fall leaf exploration, there are so many ways to do it. Here are a few easy science-based fall leaf activities you can do with your kids.
1. Parts of a leaf
Labeling the parts of a leaf is a simple way to add in some learning with your kids while out exploring nature. You can get formal and tape the leaf to a piece of paper and have your child label it, or you can simply do it verbally while you explore. Have your kids identify the stem, veins, lobes, base, and any serration. There is no wrong way to integrate this easy science activity.
2. Compare leaves to seeds
Autumn brings fall leaves, but it is also the season of acorns, conkers (horse chestnuts), pinecones, and more. Go on a hunt for both the leaves and the seeds of the trees. You can use both in crafts, plus matching them up is a great way to learn the lifecycle of a tree and learn to identify trees in your area. This science activity is fun to do year-round. If you have an abundance of conkers in your area, check out this post for some ideas on conker crafts to do with your kids.
3. Leaf identification
Different trees create different shaped and colored leaves. A fun science-based activity is learning how to identify a tree by its leaves. In the fall, it’s even more fun because the leaves are not just green, but a variety of colors. Use nature books or apps and walk and explore and learn about trees together. Match the leaves to the tree and then identify the species.
If you have a kid who really enjoys science experiments, this activity may be perfect for your family. A Little Pinch of Perfection provides a detailed tutorial on leaf color and chlorophyll. You really just need fall leaves, boiling water, rubbing alcohol, and a couple of jars. It’s a super easy experiment and one that will likely delight most children and their grownups.
Fall leaf jokes for kids
Everyone can use a little more laughter in their life. Here are a few funny child-friendly jokes all about fall leaves.
Q: What did one autumn leaf say to another? A: I’m falling for you!
Q: What is the cutest of all seasons? A: Awwwtumn!
Q: What happens when winter arrives? A: Autumn leaves!
Q: Why do trees like to try new things each year? A: Because every autumn they turn over a new leaf!
Q: What did autumn say to summer? A: Make like a tree and leave!
Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Iva
Iva who?
Iva bunch of leaves that need raking!
Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Olive
Olive who?
Olive looking at the autumn leaves!
Fall leaf books for kids
Books are such a wonderful addition to any activity. Take a book with you on a nature walk and read it under a tree. Read a book while your children paint fall leaves or cut them up into tiny confetti pieces. As the seasons change, having seasonal books on hand for your children to explore and for you all to read together as a family can be fun. If you have personal libraries you are growing, here are some wonderful options all about fall leaves.
Katie lives in a tiny home on wheels and travels full-time with her two mostly wild children, tech-minded partner, two well-traveled pups, and adopted pet snails. As they wander the North American continent, Katie explores as much as possible, with a particular fondness for the adventures her family enjoys in state and national parks. When not trekking through the outdoors, Katie enjoys baking, homeschooling, consuming mochas from local coffee shops across the continent, practicing her photography skills, and soaking up as much knowledge as she can.
As an advocate for families exploring the great outdoors, Katie co-founded a Hike it Baby branch in her hometown in Northern California and tries to encourage families to get outside whenever possible. Katie has a Master’s degree in human development from the University of Missouri, Columbia, but her passion is really history and humanities (which is coincidentally what her Bachelor’s degrees are in). She currently volunteers on the Hike it Baby National team as a contributing blogger.
Can you think of an activity that captures the attention of children of all ages? Or one that can be a fun energy-burning undertaking, a science experiment, a leisurely way to pass the time, and a neat sensory fun project? Give up? It’s playing with BUBBLES! Creative Team member, full-time traveling mama of two, Katie Fox, shares everything you will ever want to know about exploring bubbles with kids. Scroll down and get the very best bubble recipes, fun bubble activities, and games, silly bubble jokes, how to make different bubble wands, ways to use bubbles for art, and so much more!
Exploring bubbles with kids
You probably already know this, but bubbles are a fun and engaging activity that kids (and adults) love. Watching them float up and away on a breezy day, chasing them in an effort to pop them, and learning that soap causes these delightful floating orbs are all part of childhood.
Without a doubt, bubbles are fun and exciting. But they are also so much more! Bubbles are an activity that enables science learning, artistic exploration, a lot of movement, and DIY projects. Indeed, there is so much more to bubbles than meets the eye (I don’t recommend getting bubble solution in the eye though, ouch). Below you will find so many different ways to explore bubbles with your children. Let’s get started!
Yes, bubbles are fun, but they’re also good for you! The act of playing with and exploring bubbles with kids is actually quite beneficial for both a child’s mind and body. Below are just a few ways that playing with bubbles is valuable to you and your children.
Gross motor development. Your children are building their gross motor skills as run, jump, balance, skip, chase, reach, crawl, and otherwise engage with the bubbles.
Fine motor development. As your littles grab bubble wands or help build their own wands and bubble blowers, they are working on fine motor development.
Hand-eye coordination. Following the bubbles and then reaching out and actually popping one is a skill and it takes practice to get it right. Bubbles help children practice hand-eye coordination in a fun pop-tastic way.
Sensory exploration. Bubbles offer a chance to explore new sensory input. That’s right, the sticky, slimy, soap-tasting, orbs allow children to explore their senses.
Building social skills. If your child has ever popped bubbles with another living creature, it may not have ended well. Children need time and practice to learn to share and popping bubbles offers the perfect practice setting. If a bubble your child is chasing is popped by another child, you can easily redirect them to the many other bubbles floating around. It probably isn’t that easy (and when is it ever?), you can keep at it and know that playing in the same bubble popping zone still provides social skill building – even if it ends in crying.
There are so many different ways to make bubbles. Obviously, the tried and true method of using plain ol’ dish soap and water is there for a reason. It works, it’s easy, and parents already have those items on hand. But, if you are looking for a different way to make bubbles with your kids, look no further. Here are some of the best bubble solution recipes for making bubbles with kids.
Basic bubble recipe: Home Science Tools shares an easy bubble recipe to make with your children. Because it includes glycerin, the bubbles are stronger than simple dish soap and water.
Colorful bubble foam recipe: Instead of making bubbles you can blow, give this amazing foaming bubble recipe from Fun at Home with Kids a try.
Glow in the dark bubble recipe: Looking for a new way to explore bubbles with kids? This glow-in-the-dark bubble recipe from Growing a Jeweled Rose is a perfect way to wow your kids with bubbles in a whole new way.
Colorful bubble recipe: How about colorful bubbles? Use this Mama Plus One recipe for creating bubbles in a variety of colors. You could make black and orange bubbles to enjoy during Halloween or each color of the rainbow and then try to get all seven colors in the air at the same time.
Reusable slime bubble recipe: This is not exactly a bubble, but this slime bubble recipe from Little Bins for Little Hands is fantastic for making large reusable bubbles.
Pre-made bubbles: Don’t want to mess with making your own bubble solution? You can purchase premade bubble solution at nearly any retail store that sells toys. We recommend Bubble Tree Sustainable bubble refills that come in a recyclable box since it cuts out all the plastic that bubble solutions usually come in. Or this giant bubble mix concentrate, which is great for blowing huge bubbles, has less plastic, and allows you to make an enormous amount of bubble solution!
Playing with bubbles is a ton of fun. There is no need to go beyond the basics of blowing and chasing, but kids also love variety. So if you want to find new ways to explore bubbles, below are a few great ways to do just that!
Create giant bubbles. Making bubbles that are large and in charge is always a hit. Happy Hooligans shares how to make giant bubbles with straws and string.
Count how many bubbles you can pop. This is a simple and fun way to add a little something more to chasing bubbles and popping them. Plus, if you have a young child that needs to work on counting, it’s a great way to throw in some learning through play.
Blow bubbles using your hands. Don’t have a bubble wand or want to try different ways to blow bubbles? How about using your hands to blow bubbles with this helpful guide from Housing a Forest.
Chase all the bubbles. This is a classic and likely completely instinctual activity. If you have older kids, have them help you blow bubbles for the younger kids. Younger kids love chasing bubbles and this activity is likely to keep them occupied for quite a while. There are also automatic bubble blowers, which come highly recommended by parents of kids who can play this game indefinitely.
Stand inside a giant bubble. Have you ever stood inside a bubble or wanted to? This article from No Biggie will walk you through how to make a giant bubble you can stand in!
Blow bubbles with bubble gum. This is a skill most children desire to learn and what better time than now! This is an activity you can practice while out on walks or while on a road trip. Bubble gum totally counts as exploring bubbles.
Make scented bubbles. This is a neat way to add another sensory element to exploring bubbles with kids. Add a variety of scents to your bubble fun with this post from Momma’s Fun World.
Try to catch the bubbles. This is a classic game and one that is not as easy as it seems. Make sure to dip your hands in the bubble solution to make catching the bubble without popping it easier. You can also make this activity more difficult by using bubble wands, spoons, and other items to try and catch the bubbles.
Rainbow bubble snakes. This activity from Housing a Forest looks like a blast and creates a really neat continuous line of bubble foam. This is a perfect activity and could probably even be done indoors (like in the bathtub) on a rainy day.
Play bubble hide and seek. This game is played almost exactly like the original, except the person who is it blows bubbles whenever they find a hidden player. The newly found players join the “it” person and also blow bubbles each time they find a hidden player.
Freeze a bubble. This is the perfect summer (and maybe even winter) activity to do with kids. It is always fun to explore ice and making a frozen bubble with this Fireflies and Mudpies guide is sure to be a hit.
Take a bubble bath. Can’t get outside? No worries, exploring bubbles can happen in the bathtub too! You can add food coloring to the water to make the experience colorful and even experiment with different types of soaps to see which bubbles are the biggest. If you wanted to take a bubble bath outside, try filling up a kiddie pool and adding some soap.
Let’s not forget that adding soap to water and seeing what happens is technically a science experiment! With that in mind, bubbles offer a variety of different science experiments. Not only will your children (and maybe even you) be learning, but you’ll also be engaged in even more bubble fun with your kids.
Make a bubble inside a bubble. Steve Spangler Science shares a neat and easy-to-follow tutorial on making a bubble inside a bubble.
Create a square bubble. Usually, bubbles are spheres, right? Well, Science Sparks shares how you can make square bubbles and it is worth trying at least once.
Test what you can use to blow bubbles. This one is fun and walks you right through the whole making a hypothesis and testing the theory aspects of science. Gather some household items (spatulas, whisks, etc.) and nature items and see which items work best for blowing and making bubbles.
Bouncing a bubble. Looking for a little fun, some learning, and a lot of laughs? See if you can bounce a bubble following this Little Bins for Little Hands tutorial.
Using plastic store-bought bubble wands and blowers is great and obviously creates hours of fun. But, trying new things is fun too. Here are a few ways to use items you may have around the house to make your very own bubble wands and blowers.
Pool noodle bubble blower. Do you have a pool noodle that has seen better days? Consider cutting it up and using this Cut Out and Keep tutorial for making your own pool noodle bubble blower.
Pipe cleaner bubble wands. If you have some pipe cleaners lying around, consider twisting one end into a circle and leaving the other side straight to make a handle. Bam, you just made a simple and effective bubble blower.
Giant bubble wand. Puddle Wonderful Learning shares all about making a giant bubble wand and this DIY project is pretty darn easy too.
Bubble shooter made with straws. Straws are not great for the environment, but we see them every day. If you have some lying around or can collect (and clean) the plastic straws you are given at restaurants, you can create this neat straw bubble shooter from Kids Activity Blog.
Recycled plastic water bottle bubble blower. Here is another way to reuse plastics that are otherwise thrown away. Hello Wonderful walks you through how to make a plastic bottle bubble blower.
Repurposed cardboard tube bubble blower. If you have toilet paper tubes or paper towel cardboard tubes lying around, this Happy Hooligans easy tutorial is the perfect way to use cardboard tubes for blowing bubbles with kids.
Bubble snake using a sock. Is that missing sock basket getting full? Need to find a way to repurpose those socks that lost their mate? Babysavers shows you how to make a bubble snake using a sock.
Use a fly swatter. This is a simple option that is perfect for younger kids. The tiny holes in the fly swatter make for a lot of really neat bubbles and the long handle, large bubble surface, and the need to swing the fly swatter to make bubbles make it a fun and easy option.
Bubbles are not only for science and games. In fact, there are even ways to use bubbles to make art. Here are a couple of options for you and your little humans to try.
Bubble painting with tempera paint. If you have tempera paint, this Typically Simple bubble painting activity is a great way to use it.
Painting with food coloring and bubbles. This Living Well Mom bubble painting activity uses food coloring in the bubbles for a beautiful outcome.
Use a foaming hand soap pump to paint. Have a foaming soap pump lying around? You will definitely want to give this A Little Pinch of Perfect foaming soap pump bubble painting activity a try.
Making bubble prints. Using a straw, a cup, and some colorful bubbles, try this bubble print art activity from Happiness is Homemade.
We can all use a little more laughter in our lives, right? Without a doubt, one great way to round out any bubble activity with kids than to share some silly jokes with them?!
Q: Why did the bubbles cross the road? A: Their Pop was waiting on the other side.
Q: What did the bubble say to the North Wind? A: Nothing, he was just blown away.
Q: What’s a bubble’s favorite snack? A: A pop-sicle.
Q: What did the kid bubble say to the dad bubble? A: Hey, Pop!
Q: What do you call James Bond in a bathtub? A: Bubble 07.
If you are like me, books are always something to enjoy with your kids. And when it comes to bubbles, it turns out there are a ton to choose from! Here are a few wonderful options you can share with your kids before, during, and after your bubble fun.
Katie lives in a tiny home on wheels and travels full-time with her two mostly wild children, tech-minded partner, two well-traveled pups, and adopted pet snails. As they wander the North American continent, Katie explores as much as possible, with a particular fondness for the adventures her family enjoys in state and national parks. When not trekking through the outdoors, Katie enjoys baking, homeschooling, consuming mochas from local coffee shops across the continent, practicing her photography skills, and soaking up as much knowledge as she can.
As an advocate for families exploring the great outdoors, Katie co-founded a Hike it Baby branch in her hometown in Northern California and tries to encourage families to get outside whenever possible. Katie has a Master’s degree in human development from the University of Missouri, Columbia, but her passion is really history and humanities (which is coincidentally what her Bachelor’s degrees are in). She currently volunteers on the Hike it Baby National team as a contributing blogger.
Worms are fascinating creatures and your child is bound to stumble onto one at some point in their childhood. Chances are they’ve spotted one on the sidewalk after rain or found one while digging in the dirt. Worms are not just exciting to explore and easy to find, but they are also incredibly beneficial to our soil and plant health. Today Katie Fox, full-time RV traveling and hiking mom of two, is here to share all about exploring worms with kids.
{This post contains affiliate links.}
“I do not want to be a fly, I want to be a worm!” — Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Ways to explore worms with children
That magic moment when a child finds a worm for the first time is not something you soon forget. Maybe your child shrieked and ran away, leaving behind a fun story to tell them later in life. But, if your children are anything like mine, they will be excited and joyful at finding worms.
And if your child is the shrieker, have no fear. Exploring worms with kids isn’t all about digging for them and handling them. In fact, you can learn all about worms without ever touching one. So strap on your outdoor play shoes and let’s dive into easy ways to explore worms with your children.
Where to find worms
When you go on a worm hunt, one of the very first things you need to know is where to find these elusive creatures. This is not always an easy feat. But with a little determination and some ideas on where to look, you have a high chance of being successful. And remember, if at first, you don’t succeed, dig, dig again.
Dig in wet dirt
Wet dirt (not mud) is one of the best places to begin looking for worms with kids. Not only do children enjoy digging in the dirt, but they are more likely to find worms in wet dirt. We always like to start by digging under rain gutters or near water faucets. These areas are usually a bit wetter than the rest of the yard and make great starting points.
Other places to dig with a high chance of success are in a garden or near a green lawn. These areas are usually watered often and thus make great homes for worms.
Look under large rocks/stepping stones
If you’ve ever turned over large rocks you know it is a hub for all dirt-loving critters. If you have access and permission, gently lifting large rocks or stepping stones is another great place to search for worms with kids. Not only are you likely to find worms, but there is a host of so many other tiny critters living in these spaces to explore, identify, and learn about.
Watch the sidewalks
If you’ve ever gone for a walk in the rain or immediately after a rainstorm, you’ve surely come across one or more worms resting on the cement. In fact, when it rains a lot, worms surface because the raindrop vibrations feel like predator vibrations. In other words, they are running away from a threat that does not exist. So if digging in the dirt and flipping over rocks aren’t options, just wait until the next rainstorm and head on outside for a walk. The worms are bound to make an appearance and give your children a chance to see and explore them.
Sometimes the rain will wash them into the street, driveways or sidewalks. We love “saving the worms” when they’re trapped on concrete and gently put them back in the grass to be found another day!
Buy them
Don’t have a good place to dig or keep coming up empty? You can buy bait worms pretty cheap at local bait and tackle shops. Take a small container home and place them in a larger bin or bowl for exploration. If you go this route, make sure to include some moist soil to keep the worms healthy.
Worm exploring safety tips
Exploring worms with kids is such a fun and easy activity. Little to no prep is needed and it can easily happen spontaneously or with a little planning. As with any living creature, it is important to know how to explore worms safely. Here are some quick tips to make sure you handle your worms as safely as possible.
30 minutes or less: Make sure all worms you catch are released back into the wild after about 30 minutes of exploration. However, if you still have more activities to do or just want to watch the worms some more, try to find some new worms.
Worms are very sensitive: Do not handle them too much and always use a gentle touch.
Keep the exploring area damp: Use a damp cloth or paper towel to set your worms on if you remove them from their habitat.
Keep them in the shade: Make sure to handle the worms in a shady space, out of direct sunlight.
Mist the worms often: Keep a misting spray bottle on hand and gently spray your worms often to ensure their bodies are kept moist.
Worm facts for kids
When you’re exploring worms with kids, they’re sure to be curious and ask questions. I don’t know about you, but I’m not up to speed on all my worm facts these days! So, I’ve done some of the work for you and put together this list of fun facts about worms that are sure to please inquiring little minds. Whip these facts out and your kids are sure to be wowed with your extensive knowledge! (you can thank us later)
There are thought to be 4,400 (or more) species of earthworm.
Earthworms have no resistance to the sun’s ultra-violet radiation, so daylight can be fatal to them.
Worm castings (also known as vermicast) improve soil health.
An earthworm can lose one end of its body and grow a replacement, but the worm will die if it is cut in half.
Earthworms are attracted to one another by scent.
There are fossilized worms in 600 million-year-old rocks – meaning worms were living in the time of dinosaurs.
Earthworms eat a lot! They can eat about ½ to 1 times their body weight every day.
The largest worm ever found was a South African Earthworm measuring 22 feet long, though they average closer to 6 feet long.
Worms need moisture to live, so if their skin dries out they will die.
Baby worms hatch out of a cocoon smaller than a grain of rice.
Worm science experiments for kids
If your kids are curious about worms, it can be even more fun to learn these facts with hands-on activities. Here are two simple worm science experiments you can do with your children.
Moist or dry?
This is a simple activity that requires a moist area and a dry area and at least one worm. You can use paper towels or dirt to create the experiment. Create one wet side and one dry side and then place your worm’s body half on the wet side and half on the dry side. Observe which way your worm travels. Does the worm prefer the moist side or the dry side?
Light or dark?
This easy experiment is very similar to the first, but this time you are testing to see if the worm prefers the light or the dark. To set up this experiment you need to create an environment with a dark side and a light side. This is explained really well on Education.com. Which way do the worms travel? Why do you think they went that way? Did they prefer light or darkness?
Worm activities for kids
If you want to extend your worm adventures and add some more learning into the mix, here are some simple and fun worm activities for kids.
Measuring the worms
When you go out on a worm hunt, bring a ruler along with you. Children love measuring things, even if they don’t understand the concept yet. And for the older kids, have them measure each worm, write down the measurement, and then compare the findings. With this simple activity, you’ve added math to your learning.
Creating a wormery
If you want to take exploring worms to the next level, consider creating a worm bin. This is a fairly simple project and your children are sure to delight in checking in on the worms and seeing how fast they eat through your food scraps. Here are some wonderful, kid-friendly tutorials for how to create a wormery with kids and creating worm farm.
Worm arts and crafts for kids
Kids love art and there is always something special about creating art projects that align with what you’ve been exploring in nature. If you want to add a little art and crafts into your worm exploring, look no further! Here are some fun worm-inspired arts and crafts for your kids to do and enjoy!
Upcycled paper bag worm weaving
If your house is anything like mine you often find yourself with an excess of brown paper bags. Turn these paper bags into a fun worm activity in only a couple of steps.
Cut your paper bag. Remove the handles (these will be the worms) and cut the bottom of the bag out (this will be the worm weavery). Save the remaining large paper bag portion for a painting canvas or wrapping paper.
Fold the paper bag bottom in half and cut from the folded side 4-5 lines, leaving 3-4 inches uncut at the top and bottom. Voila, this is the dirt the worms will weave in.
Decorate your worms with markers, googly eyes, or anything else that your children want to use.
Add nature finds to the top of your worm weavery. This is totally optional, but it does make it seem more obvious the worms are underground.
Now you can grab your worms and weave them in and out of the weavery. This can be done once and displayed like art or over and over again to help improve fine motor control.
Painting with yarn worms
Painting with yarn worms is a simple project that requires only paint, yarn (or string, twine, spaghetti noodles, or anything else you can think of that is wiggly and worm-like), and paper.
After you’ve gathered supplies, simply dip the yarn into the paint and then let your children find their own way to use the yarn as a paintbrush. Children will come up with their own way of using their string-worms to paint and the resulting art will likely reflect the way they chose to paint.
Worm coloring pages
Sometimes having a coloring page to work on during family read-aloud time or whenever the mood strikes, is a simple and fun way to bring your nature learning into other aspects of your children’s lives. Here are two great options available for free.
Add a little laughter into your worm exploration by cracking one or all of these worm-tastic jokes. In fact, there is bound to be at least one that makes your children laugh out loud or at least sigh heavily as they bask in the worm humor.
Q: What is invisible and smells like a worm?
A: A bird fart!
Q: What reads and lives in an apple?
A: A bookworm!
Q: What does a worm do in a cornfield?
A: It goes in one ear and out the other!
Q: What do you call a worm with no teeth?
A: A gummy worm!
Q: What do worms use to leave messages?
A: Compost-it notes!
Q: What is life like for a wood worm?
A: Boring!
Q: What do you get if you cross a worm and an elephant?
A: Very big holes in your peanut garden.
Worm books for kids
Bring your worm nature study into other areas of your family life with one or more good worm-themed books. Not only are many of the following books full of worm facts, but many are funny too. Grab a book or two and head on outside to read to your children and the worms too.
Exploring worms with kids is such a treat. Not only is it an easy activity that requires little to no preparation, but worms are everywhere. Under any given acre of land, there can be 250,000 to 1.5 million earthworms helping to create and maintain Earth’s soil. They are an incredibly important critter and one that is almost always easy to find. In other words, exploring worms with kids is kind of impossible to avoid, so you might as well make it fun! We hope these worm facts, worm jokes, worm activities and worm books will help!
What is your favorite way of learning about worms with kids?
About the author
Katie lives in a tiny home on wheels and travels full-time with her two mostly wild children, tech-minded partner, two well-traveled pups, and adopted pet snails. As they wander the North American continent, Katie explores as much as possible, with a particular fondness for the adventures her family enjoys in state and national parks. When not trekking through the outdoors, Katie enjoys baking, homeschooling, consuming mochas from local coffee shops across the continent, practicing her photography skills, and soaking up as much knowledge as she can.
As an advocate for families exploring the great outdoors, Katie co-founded a Hike it Baby branch in her hometown in Northern California and tries to encourage families to get outside whenever possible. Katie has a Master’s degree in human development from the University of Missouri, Columbia, but her passion is really history and humanities (which is coincidentally what her Bachelor’s degrees are in). She currently volunteers on the Hike it Baby National team as a contributing blogger.
To all the jokesters, punny people, pranksters, and lovers of laughter…your day is here! This is snow joke! There really is a day 100% devoted to enhancing the laughter in this world and this post is all about sharing laughter with others! Run Wild My Child is all about getting families outside, so together let’s celebrate National Let’s Laugh Day the nature way.
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National Let’s Laugh Day
What does it mean to celebrate Let’s Laugh Day the nature way? It means I’ve focused my brainstorming powers on finding the best ways to get your family chuckling, chortling, giggling, guffawing, loling, and laughing outside together. Everything in this post has an outdoor or nature spin on it. That’s right, the activities, jokes, puns, and books all are related to the great outdoors in some way.
You didn’t think I forgot about making you laugh though, did you? While this post may be geared toward helping you find ways to bring laughter into your outdoor adventures, there are specific puns and jokes added especially for your reading pleasure.
In laughter, the ‘L’ comes first,
and the rest of the letters come ‘aughter’ it.
Before you dive into the chuckle-filled content below, take a moment to browse through the amazing benefits of laughter. Seriously, whoever coined the adage, laughter is the best medicine, was really onto something.
1. Laughter stimulates organs
As you laugh, you naturally bring more oxygen into your body. This increased oxygen supply stimulates vital organs and increases the endorphins sent to your brain.
2. Laughing relieves stress
Beleave it or not (this is not a joke, though the nature pun is chuckle-worthy), laughter lowers your stress levels. As you laugh, your heart rate increases and as the laughter subsides, your heart rate decreases. The result is a relaxed and calm feeling. Plus, a lot happens with the endorphins and cortisol (the stress hormone) levels in your body.
3. Laughter improves immunity
Positive thoughts, such as those that cause fits of laughter, are proven to help lower stress responses in our bodies. Since stress is actually linked to lower immunity, laughter helps lower stress and boost immunity.
4. Laughing increases personal satisfaction and decreases pain
Whenever we face a difficult situation, chuckling at ourselves or laughing at what is happening can actually make the situation better. On the flip side, laughter has the ability to help our body create its own natural painkiller. So, next time you fracture a rib, just laugh until it doesn’t hurt anymore. (This last part was a joke. Don’t do that. It will hurt A LOT!)
5. Laughter strengthens relationships with others
That’s right! When we laugh with friends, families, coworkers, and even strangers, we feel more connected to them. In turn, laughter enables us to form closer relationships with those we laugh with. And this is really what National Let’s Laugh Day is all about; laughing together and creating lasting bonds with those we love.
One of the best ways to induce fits of laughter is through play and spending time together as a family. Here are ten simple ways to get your whole family holding their stomachs and laughing until it hurts while celebrating Let’s Laugh Day the nature way.
1. Random acts of silliness
While outside or while doing routine activities, randomly begin to act silly! Skip, speak in a goofy voice, play tickle chase, jump around like a frog, roar like a lion, pretend to be a robot, or follow your child’s lead and join in on their imaginative play. Your kids will be surprised and burst out laughing! And they’ll surely follow suit, followed by even more laughter from all.
2. Outdoor dance party
Turn on a family favorite, a classic dance song, or something totally obscure and then bust out your best and silliest dance moves. Even if goofy dancing, isn’t your thing try branching out (see what I did there?) of your comfort zone and dance like no one is watching!
3. Play “make a story” while passing a ball
This game is better for older kids, but with help, younger ones can absolutely play along too. The goal is to create a silly story together as a family! The person beginning the game (or whoever is holding the ball first) creates a really silly title, then passes the ball to someone else, who then begins the story. The game continues in this fashion; whoever is holding the ball adds to the story. You can add one word, or several sentences.
Pro Tip: when the ball is passed to you, make sure to throw in something your family finds hilarious into the story.
4. Read silly books together outside
Grab a blanket, cuddle up somewhere outside, and read a hillarious book together. Books have a magical way of tapping into our emotions and make for great bonding moments! Below is a list of 12 funny nature-focused children’s books to get you started.
5. Play “the floor is lava”
Create a fun obstacle course in your yard or local park. Use what you have on hand (large pieces of cardboard, chairs, playground equipment, park benches, logs, etc.) and make sure to play along with your children! Don’t forget, you can also just randomly yell “the floor is lava” to begin the game and watch as every scrambles for something to stand on. Laugh together as you all figure out how to survive, epically fall into the lava, or find hilarious new ways to use, balance, and be outside without touching the ground.
Remember elementary school? What were your favorite games? Two easy and fun games to play with your kids are Simon Says and Red Light, Green Light. Make them silly on purpose! For instance, you can say Simon Says put your finger in your nose or make fart noises (I give you permission to use this. I know my kids would be giggling.) Or in Red Light, Green Light, pretend you can’t remember the color green and keep saying words that sound like green. The sillier you are, the more laugh-out-loud fun you’ll have together.
7. Learn a new skill together
Maybe learn to juggle together or try your hand (I mean waist) at hula hooping. Be silly. Keep trying – cactus makes perfect, right? Fail epically and laugh at yourself. Show your children that laughter is the best medicine.
8. Watch the clouds
Find images in the clouds and make up silly stories to go along with them. Maybe you will also get lucky and see silly images too. No clouds? Don’t worry, this same activity can be done with all sorts of nature items. Go on a walk through your neighborhood or your favorite hiking trail. Find images in tree bark, tree trunk knots, boulders, tree branches, cracks in the mud, patches of grass, and more. Don’t forget to get everyone laughing will a ridiculous story about how that cloud turtle lost it’s shell and thought it was a hermit crab.
9. Roll down a hill
If you haven’t rolled down a hill as an adult, you are seriously missing out. Your body may ache more than it did when you embarked on this adventure as a child, but the aches and pains are totally worth the laughs and memories you will share with your children.
10. Outdoor charades
This is the same game as the indoor version, only done outside. Be over the top as you act out your word and don’t forget to laugh at yourself when you are struggling. Show your kids that it is okay to be awful at something and still have fun!
Jokes are a sure-fire way to get people chuckling. Sometimes the laughter is because a joke was truly funny, and other times the laughter resembles a groan. This type of groan-laughter is perfect! It means the jokes you are sharing are so funny, laughter isn’t even possible. Don’t worry though, the jokes and puns below were specially curated for celebrating National Let’s Laugh Day the nature way. They are guaranteed to induce the true form of laughter and help form lasting memories and bonds between your family members.
Now you are prepared! You have the knowledge and the skills to embark on these shenanigans with your family. I’ll leaf you with these famous words of punable wisdom…
May the forest be with you! Leaf long and prosper!
I can’t think of any more nature puns. Canoe?
About the author
Katie lives in a tiny home on wheels and travels full-time with her two mostly wild children, tech-minded partner, two well-traveled pups, and adopted pet snail. As they wander the North American continent, Katie explores as much as possible, with a particular fondness for the adventures her family enjoys in state and national parks. When not trekking through the outdoors, Katie enjoys baking, homeschooling, consuming mochas from local coffee shops across the continent, practicing her photography skills, and soaking up as much knowledge as she can.
As an advocate for families exploring the great outdoors, Katie co-founded a Hike it Baby branch in her hometown in Northern California and tries to encourage families to get outside whenever possible. Katie has a Master’s degree in human development from the University of Missouri, Columbia, but her passion is really history and humanities (which is coincidentally what her Bachelor’s degrees are in). She currently volunteers on the Hike it Baby National team as a contributing blogger.
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and that typically means a whole lot of love and hearts! Let’s embrace the hearts and invite nature to be our valentine this year. Today, Creative Team member, Katie Fox, an RV-living roadschooling mom of 2, takes us on an outdoor nature heart hunt. She shows us how we can take this love-filled holiday outside and enjoy time together as a family, connecting with each other and nature. Let’s all go hunting for nature hearts!
“Keep close to Nature’s Heart…” – John Muir
Hearts aplenty
It’s the time of year when many of us get crafty with heart shapes and spend time with our children making cards and decorations to show friends and family how much we care. If you are looking for ideas, these heart-shaped seed bombs are amazing! Or, maybe, we are busy (or our kids beg us) and we buy pre-made decorations and boxed valentines for our children to complete on their own. There’s no shame in saving your sanity and buying Valentines with your child’s favorite character.
But, no matter how your family prepares and celebrates, Valentine’s Day is the time of year when kindness and love shine through. This is important. Many holidays focus on giving, but Valentine’s Day is tied to the heart. Indeed, the holiday’s focus is entirely about love and kindness. It doesn’t have to be romantic love, either. It can be about the love you feel for your family, friends, and neighbors.
You do not need to buy into the commercialized element of the holiday to spend time with loved ones focused on connecting, being kind, and your love for each other. And today, I’m sharing with you a fun outdoor activity for the entire family. Going on a nature heart hunt is the perfect way to spend some time outdoors exploring and have a little adventure with the kids.
Valentine and heart fun facts
In fact, connection and love are essentially where the heart shape and holiday stem from.
I am a lover of history and learning new things, so naturally, I delight in finding reasons to look into why things are the way they are. For instance, why is the heart a symbol of love? Why does the heart shape occur in nature? Who was Saint Valentine? And why is this holiday named after him?
These are just a few examples of the questions that ran through my head as I began to brainstorm writing this nature heart hunt post. I won’t share all of the new facts I learned after diving down this rabbit hole of information (the amount of information may overwhelm you, as it did me), but here are the most interesting discoveries.
The heart as a symbol of love may actually find its origins in nature!
Ivy leaves, lily pads, and silphium leaves (an extinct ancient North African plant) are all heart-shaped, and their respective cultures connected them, in some way, to fidelity or reproduction. Over time, the depictions of these plants in art may have morphed from heart-shaped leaves to simply the heart shape.
The heart shape connection to love may come from anatomy drawings dating back to the Middle Ages.
Since the heart organ has long been seen as connected to human emotions, the heart-shaped drawing of the organ eventually began to represent love.
Saint Valentine and his role in the love-filled holiday is equally uncertain.
Some say Saint Valentine did not agree with a law forbidding young men from marrying (in hopes of making them more battle worthy), so he performed marriage ceremonies in secret. However, others believe Saint Valentine was another (of the dozen or so who held the name Valentine) martyred man altogether.
The heart shape’s prominence in nature was a difficult one to find information on.
The only thing that even suggested the reason for the occurrence of this shape in nature, referred exclusively to the leaf shape. It proposed the heart shape enabled the plants to obtain more sunlight.
The holiday was likely invented by a poet!
Geoffrey Chaucer, who often combined or altered traditions in his poems, wrote Parliament of Foules in 1375 and suggested that on the day February 14th birds and humans should come together and find a mate.
“For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day / Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.”
Hearts found in nature
Now, you might be thinking, where are some good places to start hunting for nature hearts? This is a great question and the answer is simple. Pretty much everywhere outdoors! Check out these ideas to get you started on your nature heart hunt.
Clouds
Rocks
Leaves
Puddles
Fungi
Lichen
Tree bark
Shadows
Animal spots
Tree cavities
Animal tracks (think deer hooves or dog prints)
Cactus limbs
Shells
Tree stumps
Cracks in mud or sidewalks
Snow mounds
Tree branches
Flowers
Black walnuts (look inside)
Graffiti or murals
Hunting for nature hearts
The first rule in nature heart hunting is that there are no rules in heart hunting. There is absolutely no wrong way to go hunting for hearts in nature, so your heart hunt can be anywhere and any way you want. My family started going on nature heart hunts a couple of years ago. I cannot remember where I got the idea, but it stuck and we love it. So, whoever you are who shared this idea, thank you!
You may be surprised to know this, but the heart shape naturally appears in nature everywhere! There are literally hearts all around you! Once you start looking, you will notice them all the time. And if you are anything like me, you will begin to snap a photo each time, too. As a result, you may develop quite a collection of nature heart photos.
Eye spy – the heart-shaped version
Hunting for hearts is such a fun and easy outdoor activity. It’s basically iSpy (eye spy?) where you’re only looking for hearts. You can play this on any hike, walk, or outing. A nature heart hunt is perfect for kids of all ages (and adults). It can easily keep my young children engaged and moving forward on our outdoor adventures. So far, each and every time I suggest we hit the trail and search for hearts, my kids are 100% committed instantly! Certainly, this activity will fail me one day, but for now, I am enjoying hunting nature hearts with my children.
I search for heart-shapes right along with them and show them any I see. I always make sure to give them an opportunity to point them out first. My 3-year-old enjoys spotting the heart-shaped rocks, tree cavities, and lichen. Whereas, my 6-year-old usually dedicates his time to finding heart-shaped leaves or plants.
Find them or make your own
Do you want to know the best part about this particular nature heart hunt activity? We almost always find several examples, even if they are not perfect. And, if for some reason we don’t find any nature hearts. we simply make our own! It’s super fun to make a heart shape using a few pieces of nature nearby on the ground (leaves, sticks, flowers, etc.) and the kids consider it a complete success!
Love actually is all around
Hearts are literally all around us. They are in the sidewalk cracks, tree bark, playground equipment, leaves, rocks, and clouds. Most importantly, all of these things are available in most outdoor environments and all are great places to find those hidden hearts. You don’t need to go far or anywhere fancy for your nature heart hunt because love is all around, wherever you are!
So, as this love-filled holiday draws closer, take your family outside (a park, playground, neighborhood walk, trail hike, or any other adventure) and go hunting for nature hearts. It is easy and fun and will fill your heart with happiness.
Have you ever found a heart in nature?
“When you realise Earth and Heart are spelled with the same letters, it all begins to make sense.” — Unknown author
About the author
Katie lives in a tiny home on wheels and travels full-time with her two mostly wild children, tech-minded partner, two well-traveled pups, and adopted pet snail. As they wander the North American continent, Katie explores as much as possible, with a particular fondness for the adventures her family enjoys in state and national parks. When not trekking through the outdoors, Katie enjoys baking, homeschooling, consuming mochas from local coffee shops across the continent, practicing her photography skills, and soaking up as much knowledge as she can.
As an advocate for families exploring the great outdoors, Katie co-founded a Hike it Baby branch in her hometown in Northern California and tries to encourage families to get outside whenever possible. Katie has a Master’s degree in human development from the University of Missouri, Columbia, but her passion is really history and humanities (which is coincidentally what her Bachelor’s degrees are in). She currently volunteers on the Hike it Baby National team as a contributing blogger.
STEAM is not a new concept. In fact, it is integrated into curricula throughout the US and in many other countries around the world. The internet is also full of many activities that are STEAM inspired and teach kids about the core concepts contained therein. However, the vast majority of these activities are designed to happen in the classroom. But here at Run Wild My Child, we know kids learn best when they’re outside and it’s fun. So, we are taking STEAM learning outdoors! Today, members of our Creative Team are sharing five fun and educational hands-on nature-inspired outdoor STEAM activities for kids.
What is STEAM?
Let’s back up a bit and dive into what STEAM is. Most people are familiar with the term STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) which was introduced into the US educational scene back in 2001. The lesser-known acronym, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math), is essentially an extension of the same idea, with the addition of art. By adding art into the mix the concept becomes more well-rounded and provides children with many more opportunities to be innovative, creative, and inventive.
In fact, Left Brain Craft Brain shared that the inclusion of art is beneficial in the following ways:
Art helps remove idea inhibition (there’s no wrong answer in art!).
It focuses on the process which helps drive innovation.
Art teaches the power of observation, of people and your surroundings.
It helps hone spatial awareness and mathematical concepts like geometry.
Combining the elements of STEAM
This method is not simply ensuring children are receiving an education that includes all of these elements. It goes much deeper than that. STEAM is rooted in the idea that these concepts should be taught together and in ways that mirror real life. This learning focuses on showing how the concepts in different subjects work together to create a whole picture.
Jobs in the real world are interdisciplinary. We need to educate children in how subjects integrate and work together. They need to develop diverse skills sets and a passion for exploration and growth. We don’t need children to memorize random facts anymore. We have so many facts at our finger tips now…Instead it [education] is about learning how to think critically and evaluate information. How to apply knowledge, research and skills to problem solve.”
STEAM activities and nature
As we’ve seen, STEAM education is really about asking questions, exploring, observing, experimenting, and predicting what will happen. If you’ve ever seen a child engaged in play outside, then you know that all of these things come naturally to children when they are outside in nature. Nature allows children the freedom to explore and observe what interests them in the moment. Then, they can follow-up on what they discovered with questions, predictions, or experiments. This is where parents can be the most helpful. We can watch our children focus on something and then ask questions and offer activities to further engage them and provide more information.
The best part is, we don’t even need to know the information to be helpful. We can model saying, “I don’t know,” and researching the answers. In fact, we should do this. STEAM’s philosophy is founded on learning in real-world situations, and researching answers to questions.
We can also read nature-focused books to our children or watch short educational videos to take that new real-life nature discovery and add factual information in an engaging way. Children love it when something they’ve seen in real life shows up in a book or video.
This is the beauty of STEAM and nature. They are fairly open-ended and flexible in how we learn from them. There are so many ways to integrate STEAM concepts and learning into everyday nature adventures. Below are just a few ideas for nature-inspired outdoor STEAM activities that take learning outside.
Taking STEAM learning outside
To help you get started, the RWMC Creative Team put together five nature-inspired outdoor STEAM activities for kids that are easy to do and will get you outside. While we used the subjects in STEAM to break the activities up, each activity integrates two or more of the other STEAM subjects. Those are listed with each activity to help give you an idea of how easy it is for these subjects to overlap and replicate real-world projects and problem-solving.
Here are five nature-inspired outdoor STEAM activities that each focus on one element (science, technology, engineering, art, or math) and also incorporate others to create fun and unique learning experiences for kids.
S – Science
Nichole, from Lucky Wanderers is our resident science expert. She’s here to tackle the S (science) portion of the STEAM activities. She offers a couple different ideas on how to incorporate science into studying nature with children.
Science has always been near and dear to my heart. It’s the lens through which most of our homeschool studies pass through. The really amazing thing about science is that there are so many ways to study it! When my kids were very little, the easiest way to begin science studies was nature study. Nature study is preliminary botany and biology and a bit of animal sciences. It’s the process of noticing and learning the world around you, sometimes even right in your own backyard!
“We are all meant to be naturalists, each in his own degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things.” – Charlotte Mason.
Nature study and journaling
Our nature study began with birds. We started by putting up a few bird feeders in our back yard, placed our bird guides right in our window and started a journal to keep track of what we saw. Each morning at breakfast we would throw open our window shades and be delighted at spotting Red Bellied Woodpeckers, Carolina Wrens, and even a few House Finches. My children were little so their journals were actually full of little drawings of what they saw. As they have grown, their drawings have become more detailed. We still keep track of what we see out that window. We studied migration patterns, bird habitats, and learned about the importance of providing native plants for our bird population.
The process of nature journaling begins simply, as a way to help stimulate observation in your children, but as they age you can dive deeper into the studies. Once we found a Polyphemus Moth in our backyard, which led us to journal it, labeling the beautiful eye spots, antenna, and other body parts. Curiosity then took us on a side study to figure out what it eats and why it was in our yard, along with the life cycle.
Over the years we’ve collected a nice pile of journals, filled with progressively more detailed drawings, of things my children have spotted on our adventures. When we get home, we pull out all of our nature guides, learning in detail about what we spotted. The journaling process makes it stick. Along with that they are working on their penmanship and sharpening their art skills. Nature journaling in of itself becomes a beautiful mixing of art and science, and you can be as detailed or as minimal as you want. There are no rules. John Muir Laws makes a wonderful book that can help get you started with nature journaling.
Technology also walks hand in hand with our science studies. We often use the Seek by iNaturalist app to identify things we do not know, while out adventuring. (More on this app below.)
Recently, we took our nature journaling to the microbial level. My kids were curious about soil and my microbiology loving heart couldn’t hold back my excitement. We learned how to make a soil suspension, I taught my children how to make a wet mount slide, and then stepped back and waited for the excited shouts when they discovered a nematode wiggling across the viewfinder. Through that experiment, we were able to take a look at our soil health, and maybe improve it. Which leads to a healthier garden and more botany studies.
It’s all about perspective and when you learn to look at the world around you with constant curiosity, you will see the interconnectedness of all the disciplines.
Primary STEAM subject: Science Integrated STEAM subjects: Art and technology
T – Technology
Technology is everywhere these days and kids love all things tech! This generation has grown up hand-in-hand with technology and kids today are very adept at technology. While we certainly don’t want your child spending a lot of time in front of a screen, we know that technology is an important part of the world our children and growing up in.
And not all screens are bad and technology certainly isn’t the enemy. We think balance is important in all aspects of life and kids need to learn about technology, in addition to spending time outside in nature. There are lots of ways that technology makes it fun and easy to get outside and learn.
Today, to tackle the technology portion of STEAM, we’ll explore four different apps that kids (and parents) can use to get outside, learn about the world around them, and have fun! Each of these apps is a new and creative way to combine technology with getting out of the house and makes it fun for kids. The apps are used during outdoor activities such as hiking, stargazing, and general exploring. Best of all, they’re completely FREE!
Using apps for outdoor learning and exploration
Geocaching – Geocaching (pronounced GEE-o-cash-ing) is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunt and it’s so much fun for kids and families. Using a free app on your phone, you pull up your geocaching map, choose a cache near you, navigate to a specific set of coordinates and then attempt to find a geocache (container) hidden at that location. Geocaches can be found all over the world and almost anywhere you can imagine! Our family is obsessed with geocaching and we love finding “treasure” anytime we’re out at the park, in the city, or hiking.
SkyView – To help your child learn astronomy through stargazing, there are some really great technology tools, including the SkyView Lite free app. The SkyView star finder app can help your child find and identify constellations using your phone’s camera. You child can use this app to find her favorite constellations as they fade in and out while scanning across the sky, locate the Moon, discover distant galaxies, and witness satellite fly-bys.
Seek by iNaturalist – Seek by iNaturalist is a really great app that can be used to identify plants, flowers, fungus, and more in your area. This app is great because it can be used anywhere, is completely free, and incredibly educational. Anytime we’re out exploring, hiking, or camping and come across an unfamiliar plant, we can open the app, snap a quick photo, tag our location, and try to figure out exactly what the plant is. It usually gives us suggestions and we use our observation and deduction skills to identify the plant. Plus, we can learn all kinds of interesting facts about it and document our adventure!
Alltrails -The Alltrails app boasts that “the beauty of nature doesn’t need to be hard to find.” This free and simple app holds the largest online collection of hand-curated trail guides, so you can hike and explore the outdoors with confidence. Anytime and anywhere. It’s easy for kids to use, helps teach them about reading maps, terrain, and elevation. Plus, users leave lots of helpful feedback on trails about whether the trail is kid-friendly, where to park, what to expect, and other useful info.
Engineering is the ability to apply scientific knowledge to solve real-world problems. Engineering is the practical application of more abstract sciences like chemistry and physics. Kids can use engineering to solve a variety of problems, from figuring out how to stack rocks or blocks without them falling, to building simple machines (like pulleys) to determining the best tool to use for a project.
Engineering challenges teach so many things to kids, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, and how materials behave in different situations. Even the youngest kids can use engineering for hands-on, educational fun.
We love using natural items found outside to take our engineering challenges to the next level. Not all our projects turn out well (I’m particularly thinking of a “build a boat out of leaves” project we tried a few years ago that immediately sunk resulting in lots of tears). But sometimes the best projects are the tough ones, because they teach kids how to fail without giving up, how things work (and don’t), and practical problem-solving skills.
Engineering a bird’s nest
To cover the E for Engineering portion of our outdoor STEAM activities, Sara McCarty and her family tried their hands at building a simple bird’s nest out of natural materials they found around their neighborhood. Here’s what she had to say:
We started by collecting items that a local bird could find in our yard (no string, no glue). The kids loved foraging for materials and collected sticks, ivy, flowers, leaves, branches, and milkweed vines and seed pods.
Once we’d collected our materials, it was time to begin the process. We brainstormed different ways to form the structure of the nest. There were quite a few failed attempts before we figured things out. Trial and error led us to eventually using the ivy to form a circle and starting from there. Quite often we remarked on how extraordinary birds were because they could build strong beautiful nests without hands!
When the outline of the nest was ready, we used the milkweed vines to form the center and the bottom. Wrapping them around your hand created a circular nest-like shape, which the kids inserted into their ivy structure. We used sticks and twigs to support the nest and give it a little extra stability.
The final step was decorating the nest (adding a little ART to our ENGINEERING). I think the girls had the most fun with this part. They added flowers they found and pretty leaves. They broke open the milkweed pods and pulled out the fluffy seeds to create a nice soft warm bed for the birds. The kids took so much pleasure in making the nests beautiful and I was shocked at how pretty the nests ended up being.
Making the bird nests was so much fun! Honestly, it was a little harder than I expected it to be and I was worried that they wouldn’t turn out. However, I was blown away at how resourceful and creative the kids were. They never gave up. They kept trying. Even when the nests fell apart, they didn’t get frustrated or angry. When something didn’t work, they tried something else. They helped each other. It was an amazing experience for me to watch as a parent and I think both me and the kids learned something valuable.
Primary STEAM subject: Engineering Integrated STEAM subjects: Art
A – Art
We’ve already talked a bit about the benefits of adding art into STEAM activities. Art is a universal form of expression, as elemental as speaking or singing. Kids are naturally drawn to art and love creating. Everyone can make art – even those without artistic talent or training. Art is a way for kids to express themselves and show their creativity and imagination. Art is an essential part of the human experience.
Being outdoors and in nature is the perfect place to observe and appreciate art. Nature is beautiful and kids can find a lot of inspiration by looking at leaves, flowers, plants, and trees. And just as kids can quickly pick up stories or songs, they can easily turn their outdoor observations of nature and the world around them into art. There really is no comparison when using your treasured nature finds to create works of art!
Foraged Animal Art
Filling you in on the A in STEAM with beautiful art made with foraged nature treasures is Tiffany, of @dear.wildlings. Tiffany and her kids foraged for items in nature and used them to create beautiful works of nature art by creating animals. Here’s Tiffany with more…
This easy and fun STEAM craft allows children to focus on their observation skills to pay attention to detail. It also utilizes fine motor skills to create nature scenes and animals. This is great for kids of all ages and doesn’t take a lot of pre-planning or work to do.
While technically an ART project, you can easily incorporate a few other STEAM concepts to make it even more educational and fun for the kids. Add some science by discussing and learning about the kind of plants around your yard. Study and research the animals you want to try to recreate with your finds. Look them up in a book or online and learn about what they eat and where they live. Count the plants you collect, or how many you’re gluing on to your board with your children to incorporate more math into this activity.
For this activity, you will need:
cardboard
glue
a collection basket
some beautiful nature finds
What to do:
Go for a nature walk around your yard or your favorite local spot. Get outside, explore, and enjoy the fresh air.
Collect leaves, branches, berries, flowers, etc. The more variety, the better!
Glue all your nature goodies to cardboard to create animals of your choice. Let your imagination run wild!
Primary STEAM subject: Art Integrated STEAM subjects: Science (biology)
M – Math
Nature and math go hand in hand so easily. With young kids, you can count acorns, pinecones, trees, rocks, leaves, and so much more. Once children enter elementary school, you can collect these same objects (or any others) and use them as math manipulables. Believe it or not, the majority (if not all) of elementary school math can be taught using nature. Check out Wild Math Curriculum to learn more.
We love integrating nature into our learning, and for us
Nature snowflakes
Since winter is right around the corner and snowflakes capture the imagination of children everywhere, Katie Fox, of Family in Wanderland, is bringing you a Nature Snowflakes outdoor STEAM activity that reinforces the concepts of symmetry and patterns.
Since we travel in an RV full-time, holiday decorations tend to be primarily the art we create and are almost always inspired by or contain pieces of nature. So, creating nature snowflakes to hang up for the holidays and provide us with a little snow, since our planned winter route taking us nowhere near actual snow, was an easy choice. Plus, the activity helps emphasize patterns, which is something we’ve been learning this year.
For this outdoor STEAM activity you really only need some nature items and a place to create your snowflakes. This can be the ground outside, a table, or even somewhere indoors if the weather isn’t ideal for outdoor activities. If you wish you keep them and use them as decorations for the holidays or give them away as gifts, you can glue them to thick paper/cardstock.
The first part of the activity was gathering the nature pieces. I explained to my children that we needed a lot of each item and that we wanted each item to be about the same size. We gathered sticks, pine needles, acorn tops, fallen leaves, and acorns. I broke the sticks apart to make them about the same length, but my five-year-old was a champion at finding sticks that were very similar in thickness and leaves that were about the same size.
My children insisted that snowflakes are white, so I brought out our white paint and we all spent a lot of time painting each snowflake piece. This is obviously not necessary, but was an impromptu addition to our activity.
Painting took up the majority of our time, so if you do not do that, this activity can be done really quickly. This was the three-year-old’s favorite part and he was a champ at painting the leaves.
The next step is to arrange the nature pieces into symmetrical designs. I made one as an example of what symmetry looks like, and then took it apart. Next I helped my kids out when needed, but gave them the space to try, ask questions, and even fail.
My five-year-old figured out how to create a pattern and make his snowflake look uniform. But, at first he struggled with spacing and consistency in design. I asked him questions like, “do you think your snowflake is symmetrical?” and “how could you get your snowflake to look the same on each side?” The three-year-old needed a little more help, but did pick the objects he wanted to use and helped lay all the pieces down into a pattern.
There are so many ways these same nature objects could be used to create unique and beautiful snowflakes. I honestly had a lot of fun too, so I am pretty sure this activity would be a hit with older children and teens as well. There’s only one way to find out. Give it a try!
Primary STEAM subject: Math Integrated STEAM subjects: Art
Taking STEAM learning outdoors
There you have it! Five nature-inspired outdoor STEAM activities that harness the power of education. Taking STEAM learning outside is not only an easy way to spend more time in nature, it also allows your children another way to see how interconnected the STEAM subjects are in their lives. And since this is a fundamental principle guiding STEAM learning, it makes absolute sense to combine the two.
Rosealind Franklin – a British biophysicist whose important contributions to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA helped later scientists understand how genes are passed from parents to children – said it best:
Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.”
Which aspect of STEAM is your favorite?
Which of these outdoor STEAM activities
will you try with your kids?
Getting kids outside this fall is more important than ever. As we continue to navigate unprecedented times and deal with stress and anxiety, kids (and parents) desperately need fresh air, sunshine and Vitamin N (nature!). However, we also know that parents are maxed out in terms of what they can plan, research and execute. That’s why we’re here! We want to help busy and exhausted parents come up with fun and EASY ways to get outside with your kids. Today, Katie Fox, a full-time RV-traveling mom of 2, is here sharing five really simple autumn nature adventures that you can do with your kids with little to no planning! These ideas are easy to implement, fun for kids of all ages, adaptable for wherever you live and many can even be done in your neighborhood or backyard.
Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” – George Eliot
Finding the fun in fall
Is anyone else’s soul wedded to autumn? The fading summer heat, beautiful autumn colors, cozying up to a good book, pumpkins, apples, scarves, and tasty warm beverages, all really delight my body and soul. Autumn is my favorite time of year.
This autumn, however, also brought with it the challenges of distance learning, working from home, and Covid-19 restrictions. With new restrictions on what we can do safely indoors and out, traditional fall activities look different or aren’t available. Now, maybe more than ever, it is important to take mental breaks to help with the stress and anxiety a lot of us are feeling. And nature really is one of the best ways to easily do this.
Yet, finding time to plan and implement fun nature adventures can be so hard when you are busy juggling all the other things life is throwing your way. Who has the time to do research on what can be done and what the restrictions are and when to schedule? So let me help make it easier with these five simple autumn nature adventures for kids.
Five simple autumn nature adventures
These five outdoor adventures are simple to do and easy to implement. They can easily be done during a virtual learning break, after school, on a weekend or any time your family needs a quick romp in nature to restore your mental equilibrium. They require little to no advanced planning and can easily be done in your own neighborhood and some even in your own backyard!
1. Rainbow hike
There is no doubt about it, autumn is a colorful time of year. So why not enjoy the colors with a fun rainbow hike to see if you can find all seven colors of the rainbow? The first half of the rainbow is fairly easy in North America in autumn. But those last three colors – blue, indigo, and violet – may prove more difficult.
Preparation:
This is one super easy to prep for because it can be as simple or elaborate as you want to make it.
Don’t have time to prepare anything? This hike is perfect. Indeed, all you have to do is take a walk through your neighborhood and look for the colors of the rainbow. Nevertheless, if you wanted to prepare something, you could simply grab a piece of scratch paper and some markers draw a simple box for each color of the rainbow. Or print a rainbow. And there is always the option to have your children create their own rainbow hike worksheet making rainbow-colored squares or use my free rainbow hike worksheet.
Hike implementation ideas:
Once you get out the door, the fun really begins. Try one or more of these ideas to make your rainbow hike super successful!
Just start searching for all the colors and try to find all seven!
Go in rainbow color order! This will add a little extra challenge, especially for those children already very familiar with their colors.
If you are bringing a printed worksheet for your children to use on the hike, bring one for each child. Each child having their own printed worksheet will likely avoid some sibling bickering (trust me, I know).
If you want to keep your findings, bring some tape (to tape them to your paper) or a small bag to collect them.
2. Spiderweb hunt
Get into the spooky autumn spirit with this engaging adventure and nature activity. Spiderwebs are everywhere, probably even in your backyard or patio. They are simple enough to find and children delight in being able to spot them. A spiderweb hunt is a great way for your kids to become observant of their surroundings and aware of the nature all around.
Preparation:
Again, this one requires little to no preparation. You can simply walk out the door and exclaim, “we are hunting for spiderwebs today!” Then, all you need to do is explore your neighborhood, searching nooks and crannies for spiderwebs. However, if you have time and energy, you could also pair this nature adventure with a book (we love The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle) or a nature journaling exercise. And if you are feeling really ambitious, you could even dive deeper into how spiderwebs are made, what web material is made out of, the strength of the web material, and so much more.
Hike implementation ideas:
For this hike, I recommend bringing along a misting spray bottle to gently spray water onto the spiderwebs. This makes some of the more difficult webs easier for little kids to see and observe. An added benefit is you get to see the water droplets form on the web too, exposing all the incredible designs. Just be careful not to disturb or destroy the webs. These intricate webs took a spider a long time to make and help them catch food. Be respectful and observe with eyes only.
3. Autumn leaf hike
Once those autumn leaves begin to fall it is almost impossible for children to not enjoy them! They find delight in all aspects of the colorful leaves. And what better way to enjoy your autumn nature adventures than to explore the autumn leaves with your kids.
Preparation:
I cannot stress this one enough, this can be as simple as you want it to be! There is zero need to prep for a leaf hike! But, if your children are anything like mine, you may want to consider the following:
Bring and bag or basket to carry the many colorful leaves your children fall in love with.
Collect any art supplies you may want to use with your autumn leaves for art projects.
Hike implementation ideas:
As you meander through your neighborhood, local park or down your favorite trail, keep these ideas in the back of your brain. You may want to try them (or you may not), there is no right way to do an autumn leaf hike.
Simply enjoy the view of the leaves. Maybe point out the colors and stop to examine the colorful leaves you find.
Try to match the leaves on the ground with the tree they fell from. Identify the type of tree and what color(s) that tree’s leaves turn.
Collect a variety of leaves to display in your nature display in your home. (you can dip them in beeswax to preserve the color longer)
Let your children lay down and make autumn leaf angels in the leaves.
Rake the leaves into a pile and jump into them!
Toss a handful of leaves in the air and enjoy their faces as the leaves fall down around them. Let them follow suit.
Use the collected leaves to make a variety of art pieces. Create fall leaf crowns, make leaf rubbings, construct these adorable leaf wreaths from the Artful Parent, create these neat leaf lanterns, or use them to create a multimedia abstract art piece.
4. Costume hike
Autumn is the time of year when many dress up in costumes for Halloween. Whether you celebrate this particular holiday or not, dress-up clothes are likely a regular occurrence in your home. So why not bring the dress-up fun outdoors? People enjoy seeing children dressed up and children love the added attention the costume brings them. Besides, a stroll through your neighborhood is bound to bring smiles to faces all around.
Preparation:
All you need for this autumn nature adventure is a costume! Costumes don’t have to be spooky or scary. They can be fun and creative! Anything from a simple princess dress to a superhero cape would work. The point is to make a regular nature walk a little bit more exciting with costumes.
Hike implementation ideas:
As with the rest of these ideas, this one can be as simple as you want it to be. There is no need to add anything else into the mix. Just dress up and go for a walk around your neighborhood. But, if you want to add to the adventure, consider some of these ideas for fun costume hike day adventures.
Have a costume tea party. Pack some snacks, a book to read aloud, some tea, and a blanket. After your costume hike through your neighborhood or favorite trail, find the perfect spot in your backyard (or near the end of your trail hike) to enjoy some tea and a story together.
Create a simple DIY nature-inspired costume for your autumn nature adventures. For added fun see if you and your children can find the nature creatures they are dressed up as while on your hike.
Dress up with your kids and make the whole hike extra special! Even just a silly hat or a mask goes a long way.
5. Trash pick-up hike
Autumn is the time of year when the trees make themselves look beautiful! But, it is also typically the start of the rainy season in many parts of North America. So let’s help keep the trash out of the waterways by going on a trash pick-up hike! This autumn nature adventure is not only good for kids, but great for the planet!
Preparation:
All you need for this hike is a container to place the collected trash and a method of picking up trash. We usually use a PikStik and gloves. But we’ve also used a plastic bag around our hands as the barrier between our hands and the trash we are picking up. Again, just like the others, there is no need to travel to a local park for this adventure either, as neighborhoods are often littered with trash as well.
Hike implementation ideas:
Grab a couple of plastic bags, or some gloves and a bucket, and head on outside to make your neighborhood or favorite park beautiful and trash-free! Here are some tips for collecting trash with children.
Set some basic ground rules based on the age of your children. For example, we let our 5-year-old and 3-year-old pick up anything that is not broken glass, sharp-looking, or cigarettes. However, if they see those things, they let us know and we pick them up.
Sometimes, trash hunting becomes so much fun that children want to keep going and going. This is amazing, but also not practical. So we’ve set time limits and also have a rule that if we fill up our bag, we will take a break.
Again, there is no need to travel for this hike. Just walk out your front door and collect the trash you see in your neighborhood. Garbage trucks often accidentally lose pieces of trash on garbage day and sometimes people drop (or toss) trash on the ground, too.
Finally, consider taking some time to briefly talk about why you are cleaning up the trash. No need for a deep discussion on the topic or environmental activism, just let your children know that there is only one Earth and we need to do what we can to keep it clean.
Enjoy autumn easily
Truly, there are so many ways to enjoy autumn. Outdoor activities with kids don’t have to be elaborate or require a bunch of planning. The activities featured here require not much more than a plan to get outside a few household items. We want to make sure that getting out with your kids is a priority and we’re here to help make it as simple as possible!
Autumn is an amazing time of year to get outside and have fun with the kids. Sometimes, I enthusiastically agree with George Elliot and wish I could remain in an eternal autumn to enjoy all the wonderful bits of the season forever. These are only five simple autumn nature adventures, but there are so many other ways to enjoy the season!
What are your favorite autumn nature adventures to do with kids?
About the author
Katie lives in a tiny home on wheels and travels full-time with her two mostly wild children, tech-minded partner, two well-traveled pups, and adopted pet snail. As they wander the North American continent, Katie explores as much as possible, with a particular fondness for the adventures her family enjoys in state and national parks. When not trekking through the outdoors, Katie enjoys baking, homeschooling, consuming mochas from local coffee shops across the continent, practicing her photography skills, and soaking up as much knowledge as she can. As an advocate for families exploring the great outdoors, Katie co-founded a Hike it Baby branch in her hometown in Northern California and tries to encourage families to get outside whenever possible. Katie has a Master’s degree in human development from the University of Missouri, Columbia, but her passion is really history and humanities (which is coincidentally what her Bachelor’s degrees are in). She currently volunteers on the Hike it Baby National team as a contributing blogger.
Exploring national parks can be an amazing experience for families. One of Utah’s most beautiful and underrated parks is Capitol Reef National Park. This park is great for hiking, learning about new cultures, camping, appreciating natural beauty, bonding as a family, finding yourself, and so much more. Today, we have Katie Fox, a full-time RV-traveling mom of 2, here with everything you need to know about exploring Capitol Reef National Park with kids.
Exploring Capitol Reef National Park with kids
Our family loves exploring national parks. However, one big problem with national parks is that they’re usually huge and have so many neat places to explore. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if you are anything like me, the list of things to do and places to see can be daunting and overwhelming when trying to plan your adventure. This is especially true when you factor in planning a trip that accommodates the needs and desires of small children. Never fear! I’ve got your back. I’m here to share everything you need to know to plan a successful, family-friendly weekend adventure exploring Capitol Reef National Park with kids.
Capitol Reef kid-friendly hiking trails
There are numerous hiking opportunities at Capitol Reef. The options can feel overwhelming if you don’t know much about the area. Here are a couple of kid-friendly hiking trails in Capitol Reef that are easy to squeeze into an adventure-packed weekend in the park.
Sulphur Creek Waterfall Trail
Sulphur Creek Waterfall Trail in Capitol Reef National Park is a 1.8-mile round trip hike. It’s easy and, while it is a full sun hike, it’s a really great way to beat the heat! The trail begins right behind the visitor center and follows the shallow Sulphur Creek as it meanders through red rock canyons. We walked in the creek almost the entire time. The water helped keep us nice and cool.
If that isn’t amazing enough, it ends at a large swimming hole and small waterfall. The swimming hole is murky brown because of the red clay bottom. The water temperature is perfect! There is just something surreal and wondrous about taking a dip surrounded by the lovely red rock canyon walls. The best part? Even if you don’t make it to the waterfall and swimming hole, you and your little hikers can still play in the creek and enjoy the amazing views.
Hickman Bridge Trail
Hickman Bridge Trail is one of the most popular hikes in Capitol Reef National Park. If you are looking to avoid crowds, this one may not be for your family. Full disclosure, this 1.8-mile round trip hike is in full sun and has some elevation gain that is sure to tire little legs. If you’re up for it, I recommend hiking this one in the morning, when the temperatures are cooler.
The trail does offer stunning views, such as the ruins of a granary and the foundation of a pithouse used by the Fremont Culture, as well as the smaller Nels Johnson Bridge. If you, like our family and many overly ambitious parents before you, attempt this hike and find you aren’t up for finishing it, just know you are not alone!
Gooseneck Overlook
This .2 mile round trip hike (yes, you read that right), is at the end of a washboard dirt road. If you and your vehicle are up for the bumpy ride, the overlook is beautiful. We even saw an adorable snake chasing a lizard, which obviously captivated the children more than the beautiful view.
Capitol Reef kid-friendly activities
There are lots of other kid-friendly activities to do at the park besides hike. These are the experiences that really make Capitol Reef distinct from the other nearby national parks. They really add that extra something special.
Fruit picking in historic pioneer orchards
Yes, that is correct! There are fruit trees in the historic town of Fruita. You are able to meander through them and pick fruit to your heart’s content. They have apricots, cherries, apples, mulberries, plums, peaches, walnuts, and more. They bag and charge for what you leave the orchard with, so be prepared with cash. Check the Capitol Reef website to find out which fruit is ripe for the picking when you go, because orchards are notoriously finicky. Avoid my mistake and speak with a ranger or call ahead to double-check which fruit is available. We went in early June and nothing was ready yet. My kids were expecting a fruit picking experience and it was unfortunate to have it end up being unavailable.
Pies at Gifford House
Nothing lifts people’s spirits quite like pie, right? If you do happen to follow in my footsteps and the orchards are not available, grab a fruit pie at Gifford House! Gifford House is a restored Mormon pioneer house that operates as a small storefront. Inside the store, you’ll find delicious fresh-baked pies, cinnamon rolls, sourdough bread, homemade ice cream, replicas of items pioneers would use in daily life, and more. Once you purchase your pie (or various other goodies), there is a lovely grass area right out front where you can sit and enjoy your treats while taking in the spectacular red rock walls.
Be on the lookout for marmots
Have you ever seen a marmot? I realize marmots are not just in Capitol Reef National Park, but we’d never seen them before. These adorable little creatures inhabit the area of Fruita. There are signs along the Capitol Reef Scenic Drive warning of their frequent road crossing. If you happen to see one, count yourself lucky. Plus, a sighting may also lend itself nicely to learning more about the chunky little creatures.
Capitol Reef Scenic Drive
If your little hikers are tired of all the walking, or if it’s too hot to be outside, consider a driving tour of the park. The Capitol Reef Scenic Drive is a sixteen-mile round-trip drive and is absolutely stunning. It offers a lot of different views of the park and all the areas. Not to mention, there are weather permitting offshoot dirt roads you can venture down and explore. Capitol Gorge Road and the highly recommended Grand Wash Road meander through tall rock canyon walls and provide more beautiful views. Even if you skip the detours, the drive is lovely and has pull outs for you to stop and take photos or just linger to soak in the views.
Earn a Junior Ranger badge
The chance to earn a Junior Ranger badge is available at almost all national parks and is a great way to round out your trip. With my kids, this experience always adds some additional fun (and learning) to our park adventures. The Junior Ranger booklets are chock-full of information about the park, including geology, plants, animals, Leave No Trace practices, and the former peoples and cultures to inhabit the land.
As part of the Junior Ranger program in Capitol Reef, you must attend a ranger talk. There are so many amazing options, including bats, geology, the Fremont culture, and more. Plus, if you turn in your completed booklets, you get a badge and sworn in as a Junior Ranger. If your little ones are like mine and struggle with the end of a trip, the swearing-in process is a wonderful send-off and makes leaving a little easier for everyone.
Explore the cultures at Capitol Reef National Park
One of my favorite things about national parks is how they try to incorporate information about the cultures and people that inhabited the land before it became federally protected land. Here are a couple of kid-friendly activities and options to incorporate cultural learning and bring awareness to your adventures at Capitol Reef.
Explore the historic town of Fruita
If you have time, Fuita is a little pioneer town full of buildings to explore and things to see. An old-school house, a barn, Gifford House (as mentioned above), a nature center (which due to Covid-19 we were unable to explore), and more. There are signs to provide some information about each building too. I found it really neat to share with my children how the Fremont people lived in the area before the Mormon pioneers and how each culture was different. I am a total history nerd and very much enjoy learning these types of things.
Petroglyph Point
Petroglyph Point is a short trail right off the main road. This is such a lovely stop and I highly recommend it. There are several spots to view the petroglyphs created by the Fremont culture and some are in amazing shape. My little ones tried to guess what each symbol meant and we looked them up later in a petroglyph handbook we picked up at the visitor center.
Capitol Reef National Park resources
There are so many amazing things to do while exploring Capitol Reef National Park with kids. This is a small list of all the amazing things Capitol Reef has to offer. The Capitol Reef website provides a variety of other options, and even has a section for visiting with children.
Looking for some more information to make your trip the best it can be? Read up here for some more tips from Run Wild My Child.
What’s your favorite place to explore in Capitol Reef National Park?
About the author
Katie lives in a tiny home on wheels and travels full-time with her two mostly wild children, tech-minded partner, two well-traveled pups, and adopted pet snail. As they wander the North American continent, Katie explores as much as possible, with a particular fondness state and national parks. When not trekking through the outdoors, Katie enjoys baking, homeschooling, consuming mochas from local coffee shops across the continent, practicing her photography skills, and soaking up as much knowledge as she can. As an advocate for families exploring the great outdoors, Katie co-founded a Hike it Baby branch in her hometown in Northern California. Katie has a Master’s degree in human development from the University of Missouri, Columbia, but her passion is really history and humanities (which is coincidentally what her Bachelor’s degrees are in). She currently volunteers on the Hike it Baby National team as a contributing blogger.
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