Welcome to Day 3 of the Outdoors Family Challenge! This is a seven day challenge to help get you and your kids outside, living more sustainably, and connecting more with nature and each other. You can read about our experience yesterday or check out the archived prompts on the Outdoors Family Challenge page.  If you would like updates each morning with the activities, sign up for the email list or like our Facebook page.

 

Have a nature scavenger hunt

Children approach nature with an inherent sense of play. They love searching out objects that look ordinary to adults and imbuing them with great meaning.

One way to spark and encourage that  curiosity is to have a scavenger hunt. Download the scavenger hunt worksheet as a PDF or print out the graphic or text below. Unlike a regular scavenger hunt, where there are specific “right” answers, there may be many ways to fulfill each category here. In addition, there are a number of blank spaces where you can make your own categories!

For young children, hold the paper yourself and read each item. Depending on their age, have them search it out or work with them together.

For older kids, you can each take a sheet and a camera, take photos of each item and compare your findings at the end. For the create-your-own categories, create them for the other person and then swap papers.

Either way, be open to what your children say! If the answer seems “wrong” at first, gently ask them why they picked the object they did. If you can’t find everything, don’t worry! Not all of these will be available in every habitat.

Take a photo of the most memorable thing you found and post it to the We’ll Eat You Up We Love You So Facebook page, to your Twitter account, or to your Instagram account with the hashtag #outdoorsfamilychallenge!  At the end of the week, we’ll be giving away a copy of Vitamin N to a random participant courtesy of the Children and Nature Network.

 

Nature Scavenger Hunt
From We’ll Eat You Up, We Love You So and PERMIE KIDs

Find one or more examples of items that fit in each of these categories. Make up your own ideas for the blank spaces. Either find the new items together, or if you child is old enough, swap and find items that match the other person’s categories. Have fun!

Living things in nature

• A seed  
• A thing that makes its energy from the sun
• An animal that helps plants grow
• An animal that only lives in dark places  
• ________________________
• ________________________
• ________________________

 

Habitats and food sources

• Something that provides water to animals  
• A place an animal could live  
• Food for an animal  
• ________________________
• ________________________

 

Senses

• Owl eyes – Something that moves quickly
• Deer ears – Something that makes a loud noise
• Dog nose – Something that has a strong smell
• ________________________

 

Imaginative play and nature appreciation

• A place that a fairy would want to live  
• A place you would want to go if you could shrink yourself very small  
• A place that is good to read a book
• A tree that you would like to be your friend
• ________________________
• ________________________