The artist at work.
Yesterday, we completed the Day 4 activity but I didn’t get to write about it because my children hate sleep. When I got home from work, we had a lovely time poking, smashing, smudging, and squishing leaves, weeds, and clover into finger paint. Sprout also used his fingers to create a lovely swirl of red and blue.
Welcome to Day 5 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 my Facebook page.
Take a bug’s eye view.
Nature often feels the most significant on the large scale – at the tops of mountains and edges of oceans. But the small scale offers untold wonder and insights. Millions of organisms that are essential to how the world works live under our feet every day.
Welcome to Day 4 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 my Facebook page.
Integrate nature into art
Nature has inspired creative expression since art began! Many of the earliest cave paintings are of animals. In addition to inspiring art, nature can also provide the canvas and tools to create it.
Go outside and find some materials you and your kids can use to make art. Some possibilities include leaves, acorns, pinecones, blades of grass, sticks, dirt, sand, water, and weeds. Let the materials themselves inspire you.
Day 3 of the Outdoors Family Challenge in my house almost ended as soon as it started. When I came in the door, Sprout was playing with his Duplos. I asked him, “Do you want to go outside?” To which he promptly answered, “No.” Fortunately, I wasn’t deterred and he wasn’t being terribly stubborn, so we headed outside five minutes later. The scavenger hunt (PDF) didn’t exactly go as planned, but plans never quite do with three-year-olds.
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!
“We talked about how it was different from the spiderweb at the house.” (The one outside our kitchen window.)
My husband took on the Outdoors Family Challenge responsibilities today! (For instructions on today’s prompt, check out Day 2 – Walking and Biking to a Destination.) I have a long commute and often don’t get home until 6:30, so I knew it would be hard to walk anywhere further than the park (which is literally across the street) before dinner.
Chris decided to walk to our downtown area with the kids, which at a mile away, is fairly ambitious. Here’s what they saw, with quotes from my husband:
Welcome to Day 2 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 my Facebook page.
Walk or bike to a destination.
One of the best ways to get outside and connect with your community is to walk or bike places for transportation. Many of my favorite memories as a child were formed from behind a set of handlebars. Now, my family regularly walks to the park and grocery store.
In our part of the world, the first day of the Outdoors Family Challenge started damp but ended with a glowing sunset. (Read the Day 1 prompt or follow my page on Facebook to get ones throughout the week!)
In fact, the challenge has already gotten someone outside who wouldn’t have been otherwise – me! While the rain had stopped by the time I got out of work, it’s likely I wouldn’t have sat on our wet front steps. Instead, I grabbed Sprout and Little Bird and headed out the front door. Continue reading
Welcome to 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. If you would like automatic updates each morning, sign up for the email list, follow check out the archives on the blog, or like my Facebook page.
Each morning, I’ll post a prompt for you to do and then the afternoon or evening, I’ll post about our experiences.
We encourage you to post about your experience on your blog and social media using the hashtag #outdoorsfamilychallenge. (It would be even better if you could include a link to my blog or Facebook page so other people can find out how to participate!). At the end of the week, I’ll be giving away a copy of Richard Louv’s Vitamin N to a random participant that uses the hashtag.
If you can’t do the activity that day, that’s okay! Do it the next day and don’t worry about following it exactly.
For even more outdoors fun, check out the Children and Nature Network’s Vitamin N Challenge. Jen Mendez at PERMIE KIDs, Sandi Schwartz at Happy Science Mom, and Aditi Wardhan Singh at Silver Linings are also participating in the Challenge, so be sure to check out their posts as well!
We can’t wait to see your photos and read about your experiences!
Day 1 Challenge: Use your senses to take in nature.
Spend 15 minutes (or more) outside with your kids, just paying attention to what is going on around you. Encourage your kids to use all five senses. Sit on the ground, if possible.
The bride walked down the aisle, a flowered headband in her short, black hair. As everyone watched expectantly, I shhhhed my yammering three-year-old son. While the readers recited statements from the couple’s grandmothers, I struggled to hold him on my lap. As a member of the wedding party read a passage by astronomer Carl Sagan, I finally hauled my kid down the aisle. The two of us spent the rest of my friends’ wedding in the back of the building. I alternated between trying to catch bits of the ceremony, grabbing him as he sprinted out the door, and whispering to him about how disappointed I was. It was a pretty low moment in my parenting career.
It wasn’t supposed to go like this.