4 Family Activities to Connect Your Child with Nature

Children love to be outdoors, so planning a family activity out in nature will make them jump for joy. While you are enjoying yourself, don’t forget to teach your children as much as possible about their activities and surroundings.

4 Family Activities to Connect Your Child with Nature

Plant a Vegetable Garden

Children need to know that their food comes from nature, not the grocery store. Planting a backyard vegetable garden can teach them so much about plants, soils, climate, and insects. Throw in a little chemistry for the older kids by teaching them about insecticides and fertilizers, being sure to teach them safe handling of any and all chemicals. Start an earthworm composting bin to show them how earthworms turn kitchen scraps into fertilizer. Tending a garden also teaches children patience, and at the end, you get tomatoes.

Go Camping in the Woods

Camping is a great way to get up close and personal with nature. There is nothing like sleeping, eating and playing outside to make a child appreciate everything the outdoors has to offer. Teach them how to be safe in the woods, how to identify birds and their calls, how to tell the difference between edible and poisonous plants, and how to hunt or fish for their supper. They will come home tired, but happy.

Go Trail Riding

Horses and kids just go together like hands and gloves. The whole family will enjoy a ride through wooded paths, where you will enjoy the sights and sounds of nature. Be sure to dress appropriately for riding with the help of places like Cool Equestrian so that you don’t get saddle sore or get scratched up by branches and such. Try to find a stable that teaches horse safety and allows the children to learn how to feed, water and put the horses away properly.

Go to the Beach

Regardless whether your beach is on a lake or the ocean, there is much to learn from the shoreline. On pebbly shores of large lakes, you can teach your children about the different minerals that make up rocks, which fish live in the lake and the names of the animals that live around it. At the ocean shores, your children can collect and learn about sea shells, learn to identify shore birds, fish and sea animals. Of course, they can also build a sand castle and swim.

Whatever you decide to do as a nature experience for your kids, let it be fun, but also take the opportunity to teach them. There is so much to learn and kids are little sponges that soak knowledge right up.