Nature Activities for Kids – Page 3

Top 10 Earth Day Activities for Children

by Jodi Valenta

Happy Earth Day!
In our house, Earth Day is big! I was a child of the ’70s when the first one started, and my parents always made a point of teaching me that I needed to help care for the earth. As a result, I am environmentally conscious and I strive to teach my family how to be earth-friendly. Each Earth Day, we pay special homage to our Mother Earth by doing an earth-friendly activity. We have done many over the years, so I thought it would be helpful if I passed them on to you.

Top 10 Earth Day activities for children:

1) Plant a tree.
2) Go far a walk. Take a reusable bag with you and pick up garbage you see along the way.
3) Take your bottles, cans cardboard, etc. to the recycling center. Allow your children to keep the money you receive from returning any deposits.
4) Spend some time at your local nature center learning about native critters, plants, and trees. Better yet, volunteer to help plant a flower bed, clean up trash, or fill bird feeders.
5) Plant a vegetable garden. There are few things more earth-friendly than growing your own food, especially if you go organic!
6) Organize a play date in the outdoors. Work together to clean up an area of a local park.
7) Go to a natural food store and buy items to make an organic lunch, then go on a picnic.
8) Ask your kids to help you start composting. They can help dig up worms to add and add kitchen scraps each day.
9) Go for a bike ride instead of a drive in the car.
10) Pledge to spend more time outdoors with your kids!

Have a great day! And read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss to your kids tonight. 🙂

Nature Activities for Kids

Spring Fever? Plan Your Veggie Garden Now!

by Editorial Staff

We’ve all had Spring fever for awhile now — ever since Punxsutawney Phil looked for his shadow earlier this month. We normally love winter! We take advantage of all the fun outdoor activities it brings and don’t mind the constant view of a heavy white blanket of snow outside the window. However, this winter is a different story. After more snow days than I care to remember, water leaks in the house due to the ice dams on the roof, an insurance claim, a snowplow bill that will break the bank, weeks of bone-chilling cold, the utter inability to play outside due to the now thick sheet of ice that has formed on top of the snow, and the excitement of seeing Snow Drops bulbs peeking out of the frozen ground, we are ready for the colors of Spring! I’m willing to bet many of you are too!
My idea for this post was to help you and your children combat Spring Fever by providing instruction on planning a garden. In doing research on how to plan a garden, I came across the following excellent resource that provides hand-on planning ideas. Check out the following link that provides everything you need to help your children grow a garden.

Planning A Vegetable Garden For Kids: Make It Fun And Easy

Do you have any helpful tips on planning a garden? What are your favorite flowers and plants to plant and why?

Critter Corner

Critter Corner: Deer

by Editorial Staff

Fascinating Deer
What animal arouses more emotion, controversy, interest, anger, compassion and awe than deer? They live throughout the United States, in the cities, the country and the suburbs. Deer are magnificent and fascinating to watch if you are lucky enough spy one, can provide a delicious and healthy food source and can wreak havoc in gardens, woodlands and on roadways. Grown ups know them for all of these qualities and, love ’em or hate ’em, they provide an awesome opportunity to promote nature appreciation in children.

Many species of deer make this country their home, but the one most often seen and known by people is the White-tailed deer. They are the the most abundant big game animal in North America. Their habitat is mainly woodlands and they live in families made up of females and fawns or several males (except during mating season). They are herbivores, meaning they only eat plants. Deer make are an interesting topic because they are so familiar and at the same time so aloof.

If you would like to teach your child(ren) about deer, here are some great links to pages that provide more information for you to use to teach your children:

Nature Activities for Kids Involving Deer

Go outside or to the nearest park or nature center and look for deer tracks in the snow. They are easy to spot and look like the image posted to the right. Even if you do not see deer tracks, you will most likely see tracks of other animals like squirrels or birds.
While you are there, look around and look for and discuss what deer might eat.
If you find tracks, follow them and see where they lead. Discuss where the deer might have been heading.
Go to the library and search for books about deer.

It is interesting for children to watch families of deer if they live in your area. They are most often seen at dusk and at dawn.

Birds

Our Winter Friends

by MCC

Today is a good day to fill the bird feeder. It is cold and the birds will most certainly be looking for an easy meal since they will be using more of their energy to stay warm. Feeding the birds is a great way to reconnect your children with nature. It allows them to become instant naturalists because it is so easy to observe birds and discuss their behavior. You can help your children identify the birds that appear at your feeder.

Our birds flew South for the winter months ago. Lately, we have seen Blue Jays, Chickadees, Nuthatches, little Downy Woodpeckers, and Tufted Titmice visiting the feeder. The Northern Juncos arrived sometime last week. They must be happy to be in the New England weather. To them, this is like being on vacation in paradise. What we think of as cold and wintry they think is balmy and warm. Juncos travel all the way from the northern reaches of Canada in mid-fall and stay until returning in the spring.

A family of turkeys visits the feeder every couple of days. There are 13 members in this family. One of the jakes tried to land on the feeder and almost knocked the entire thing to the ground before he decided he was too big to perch on it and eat. Luckily for everyone on the ground because they received a free meal.

Once a child is able to identify several birds, she will enjoy looking for them each day. My daughter is eager to head downstairs each morning to see what birds she will find. The fact that she provided the food they are eating makes her feel important and helps build her confidence.

Nature Activities for Kids

Falling for Fall

by MCC

How to capture the joy of this favorite season with your kids

Ahh the sights, sounds, and scents of Fall. All around creatures are going into hibernation mode. Sometimes wouldn’t it be great to head south along with the birds! Speaking of migration, now is the time that you can point out flocks of birds migrating to your kids. We recently had huge flock of Blackbirds pass through our neighborhood, as they do every year. It’s really neat to watch hundreds of birds foraging together in the leaves and grass. When they fly they are huge mass blackness against the blue sky.

Around this time, we also watch for the Northern Juncos to arrive here yet from Canada. Now that the wind has turned brisk and cold, we expect them any day now.

You and your kids can watch the winter preparations going on around you, too. You can point out he squirrels and chipmunks foraging for food. Talk about what tress lose their leaves first and last. Often its the maples, birch, tulip and sassafras trees followed by the oak trees. You can easily spend and entire afternoon identifying leaves you all find. Another idea is to race acorns down a hill to see which one wins.

You know those rocks that kids often collect and are found alll over the house! Now is the time to convert to items found around the yard or in the neighborhood park. All kids enjoy collecting things and collections are especially handy to help them learn sorting , counting, comparing and contrasting.

Here are some tips on having fun with collections during Fall:

Ask you children to find a boxes, jars or plastic containers from your recyclables bin. They can paint or decorate them prior to heading outside.
Once outside look for items on the ground. You can look for items in several categories.
- Seeds – Maple “helicopter” seeds, acorns, hazelnuts, rose hips, various cones, chestnuts, berries
- Leaves of all varieties and colors
- Twigs and branches
- Spent fern and flower fronds

Warning: Do not let your children collect fungi or berries that could be poisonous. If there is any question in your mind a “no touch” policy is best.

3. Spread all the items they have found out onto the lawn and have them sort them by color, type, size, etc.
4. Use use the items to make fun things like masks, decorative hats, mobile and much more.

Once your child is fisnihed, ask him or her to put all the items into the various containers lable them and organize them on a shelf them inside. This is the perfect was to always have items to use in artwork or creations throughout the winter! The bonus is that they are natural and totally free!

There are so many fun activities to do in the fall! Check back next week for more fun activity ideas.

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