Great Outdoor Activities for Kids

Spending time outdoors with kids is a great opportunity to have a great time, but also a perfect setting for teaching skills that many children don't get enough opportunities to develop in today's busy society. Not only does going outside provide limitless possibilities for fun and exercise, it's also free and the escape from all of our modern distractions gives unique ways to connect with your kids and spend time with then that they will remember for years and years. Making the effort to bring your family outdoors will always pay off in a big way.

The most basic and easiest way to enjoy nature with kids, and the one that takes the least amount of planning and can be done at any time, is to make whatever nature resources around your home a playground for your kids. If you're lucky and live close to a field or a patch of wood or a creek, chances are that your kids have already discovered the joy of imaginary play outside, but if you like so many people live in a suburb or a city area, there might not be too many obvious natural retreats. Often, kids are confined to going to a park and play in a sandbox or a play set. This can be very rewarding of course, but with a little bit of unconventional thinking, you can make even a trip to a planned park a nature adventure.

Something as simple and basic as climbing a tree is turning into a lost art for many kids today, as they are encouraged to play on safe and structured play structures, with padded poles and easy grip surfaces. As a result, they never learn to handle the challenge of climbing a real tree with all the mental and physical challenges that that implies. Any park will have trees, let your children climb them. This will give them great strength and coordination training, physical confidence, and a sense of balance and an understanding of the amount of weight a branch can support. Often you don't even have to go anywhere for this great activity, many people have a great tree to climb right in their own yard.

This highlights one of the greatest advantages of getting outside, ample and free excessive for you and your kids. It does not have to be a tree climbing challenge, just jumping a cross a creek, carrying rocks for a dam project, just moving in nature. It will provide you and your kids with the joy of movement, something which is severely needed today. Once you get yourself and your kids up and out, you will find that there's no limits to what kids can make into a compelling plaything. From building a secret clubhouse under the branches of a suitable tree, to just pretending to be motocross cycles while running through a field, if you join them you will marvel at the creativity of a child's mind that is left to find it's own entertainment.

As you see, your own back yard is a possible nature paradise, but to really connect with nature, and take advantage of our natural resources, getting out and away is still unbeatable. First of all, if you decide to go camping, or a cabin type get away suits your fancy better, try to make sure that for your outdoors getaway, you don't have a TV available, no wireless internet or any of the time thieves of modern life. Try to put emphasis on having your kids create their own fun. Kids today are super busy and have their scheduled filled with all sort of activities and gadgets to keep them from ever getting bored, but sometimes, this will stifle their ability to engage their minds in creative ways to have fun. A trip 'back to basic' is a great way to kick start kids natural creativity. Also, if you minimize the distractions, chances are you will have a lot more incentive to join your kids in their exploration of nature. The memories you will share will be worth unlimited amounts of TV time you might have missed.

Left to themselves, kids will usually make up games of their own pretty quick, but here are some activities that you can suggest that kids will love and also will give you the chance to teach your kids about the environment around them. For smaller kids, a great way to encourage creativity and talk about nature is to help your kids make their own toys out of things they can find around your campsite. One classic is to build a farm with nature materials, a pine cone and four sticks turns into a great cow, moss will double as hey stacks, pebbles mark of the property with great works of masonry. Join your kids in a scavenger hunt for thinks that can turn into farm animals, houses, a tractor, anything they might want to put on their farm, and as you collect things, explain the different things they bring back. Show them how a pine cone holds the seeds that can grow into a huge tree, what animals like to eat the grass they have collected, share with them the things you know about the things you see.

For slightly older children, the closeness to nature and the amount of time you get to spend together is a great opportunity to teach them how to use some of the tools that require practice and respect to be used properly. Particularly, a camping trip is the perfect time to teach your kids how to use a knife to create their own toys. Let them have their own knife, that is sharp enough to cut branches and whittle wood. Since you'll be together make sure they learn proper safety precautions when using a knife, and trust them to handle the responsibility. They will most likely grow to the responsibility and it will help them build self esteem when they see that can handle responsibilities. Of course, if they fail to understand the importance of respecting the tools they handle, take the knife away, and try again on your next outing.

Some excellent projects for learning how to wield a knife is to create their own bow and arrows. This is not difficult, but teaches them some core ways of using a knife, from chopping off a suitable branch and creating groves for the bow string, to smoothing and sharpening the arrows. Make sure you bring some twine for a suitably limp bowstring. Kids will love the feeling of creating their own toy in this way, but they will also be tempted to play cowboys and indians with their new bows, which gives another chance to teach your kids about respect for the tool that a bow is, and to never aim it at their friends or an animal.

A less aggressive project is to whittle wood boats. From simple bark designs to more complicated rubber band driven boats, these are great ways to learn how to use a knife to form wood. And of course, nothing beats the fun of racing your own boat designs down a creek or trying to get your bark sailboat to cross the pond first, carried by a maple leaf sail.

A camping trip is also the perfect time to teach kids to start and put out a fire, and to respect the power fire has to destroy. Let them build the campfire and light it, and if it fails to light, explain why and show them how a fire needs to be built to burn easily, and how to contain it so it won't spread. Again, you can explain all the things you know about a fire, how wet wood makes more smoke, how smoke will keep mosquitoes from getting too close, how to safely put out the fire before leaving it, and how to make sure sparks don't start a wildfire.

These are just a few ideas for getting your kids involved and engaged in the great outdoors. Obviously, there are infinite ways to use nature to connect with and teach your kids. The most important thing is to get up and get out, and enjoy all the marvels of nature.