Exploring Outdoors with Kids

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Wondering where to begin when it comes to raising confident outdoor explorers? The key to helping your kids feel comfortable in the great outdoors is consistent exposure. The more time they spend outside, the more they begin to enjoy and appreciate the magic that surrounds them out there. And the more they feel the magic, the more they’ll be inclined to practice and advocate for sustainable habits.

Below I’m sharing our favorite ways to engage with Mother Nature that can all be accomplished in your backyard or local neighborhood. Start small with 10-15 minutes daily, then build up to 30-60 minutes depending on your children’s ages. Begin in your yard then venture out from there. Be sure to get outside during different times of the day as well as in various types of weather. Stick with open-ended activities (and expectations), simply remain flexible as you establish and build your family’s norms for outdoor exploration.

Playing Games to Connect with Nature

I-Spy and Nature Hunts–“I spy with my little eye” is a phrase we hear many times a day. Our children are also avid collectors of leaves, rocks, shells, and sticks. We practice colors, numbers, patterns, initial letter sounds and more all while interacting with our outdoor surroundings. It’s remarkable how children are able to develop a keen sense of detail through playing such games. Finally, I love how they inherently encourage participants to explore the natural world on their own terms. It’s fun to see and hear about how they experience their surroundings.

Races and Obstacle Courses–We like to get creative with our outdoor play by identifying and using natural landmarks for boundaries and obstacles. In this way our children have learned how to move around boulders, trunks, and root systems. When such features aren’t readily available we use whatever we have on hand: balls, chairs, or even a wagon–all so they can strategize how to move over, under, around, and sometimes through things. Playgrounds make for easy obstacle course tracks as well.

We challenge them to move like different creatures e.g. kangaroo, snake, crab. In order for them to feel comfortable navigating out on the trails, they need to build their understanding of their bodies can move around all kinds of things. You can also guide them with prompts: show me another way to do that, which way do you think is safer, and so on. Body and spatial awareness should be practiced and discussed!

Rituals and Traditions to Connect with Nature

Sunrise Strolls and Sunset Picnics We often plan our outings around greeting or saying good bye to the sun. Watching the sky change colors has been embedded in our children so much so that sometimes they’ll drag us out of bed to the front porch for some of the more spectacular displays of colored clouds. Create your own morning ritual inspired by the picture book The Way to Start a Day by Byrd Baylor. It’s also fun to notice how familiar objects and places look different throughout the day.

Gardening Our home garden has been a long work in progress. We began with sugarloaf pineapples and papayas because they’re two of our children’s favorites. Over the course of quarantine we’ve expanded to nearly all of our favorite fruits and vegetables with some guidance from Farm to Keiki.

If you’re relatively new to gardening like we are, I say start with one fruit or vegetable per family member then go from there. And if possible, start from seeds for at least one of them so that everyone can experience the full life cycle of a plant. Since we’ve spent more time in the garden I’ve noticed that our children are more aware of and certainly more curious about plant parts and their functions.

Outside Snacktime We encourage our keiki to enjoy their morning and/or their afternoon snack outside. We also occasionally squeeze in breakfast in the treehouse or lunch on the lanai. Either way, this is a bonus opportunity to make observations about what we see, hear, and smell amidst the fresh air together. From there we can make comparisons to a previous day, call attention to interesting details, and make predictions about the future.

This is also a good time to reinforce concepts surrounding how we share the Earth with many creatures and plants. In doing so we can help children develop a deeper sense of responsibility towards caring for nature. As they realize that the great outdoors is the ultimate playground for all, their desire to protect it will only grow.

Opt Outside Every Day

Again, the goal with all of this is to get you and your keiki more comfortable in the great outdoors. As you spend more time outside playing outside you should start to release more and more control, allowing children to explore (and problem solve) with confidence. It’s going to take practice and patience but I promise it’ll be worth all of the work you put into it.

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