Do your children love being outside?
Do they love to explore?
Why don’t you take them on a nature trail?
Going on a nature trail can be great for children of a range of ages, as you can pitch it at a range of levels. This is also ideal if you have children of mixed ages as the older children can help the younger children.
It doesn’t have to complicated to set up or costly. So much can be learnt from just spending time in the back garden, local park or on a country walk.
What you can do:
- If it’s a sunny day, pop on some suncream and sun hats and head outside
- If it’s a rainy day, get those wellies out and the rain jackets and burn off the cabin fever
- Nature trails can work well at any time of year but we really like heading out after there has been a big downpour and there are plenty of bugs and creatures to see
- Encourage your children to pick things up, teach them to be gentle and how to handle small creatures with care
- You can get them to collect a range of things
- For toddlers, they often like collecting random things of their own and showing them off to everyone – be enthusiastic, these are their treasures!
- For older preschoolers, use it as an opportunity to work on their colours, counting and so on e.g. Can you go and find me 5 twigs or 6 daisies?
- For older children, use it as a time to test their knowledge of different trees, bugs, flowers and so on
- Don’t worry about them getting mucky, it’s part of the fun and the learning process – muddy hands, faces and clothes will all wash!
- Most of all, have fun all together!
12 comments
Awww this is a sweet post, very helpful xxx thanks for sharing #sharewithme I look forward to part 2
Thank you! So are we 🙂
We love nature trails and try to go on one several times a week 🙂
Ah that’s good to hear! It felt like one inside last night after we found a huge spider lol!
We LOVE nature trails!!
Maybe you would like to look up #30dayswild with the wildlife trusts because they have some great areas to do this in, as well as new ideas for your walks!
Natalie x
That’s a super idea – thanks so much for the tip:)
oh what a lovely idea and so fun for the kids too. I need to do more things like this with my two this summer at my parents in the woods. lol Thanks for linking up to Share With Me. #sharewithme
Sounds like a good plan – the woods would be great!
I’m so going to do this (a lot) during the long summer holidays! We have a little toy magnifying glass that we use in the garden and I take a little bag for specimens.
#thelist
I need to get one of those too!
I love the idea of going on a nature trail i think i will have to do something like this with my children when they are older x #sharewithme
Lots of fun – even my 9 month old gets involved, so they are never too young 🙂