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Encouraging children to get outdoors in nature with a fun activity that will keep them engaged.

Create a nature Journal with your children to help them have a better understanding of nature and to encourage them to ask questions about the nature that surrounds them.

Go on a walk to the park, forest, pond, stream, woodland, beach. Use your journal to make notes and draw what you find most interesting. Write down what you see and hear, stick special leaves and flowers that you find in. Draw around leaves and create leaf and bark rubbings on the pages.

Take some watercolours and crayons to use - what colours can you see?  Take this journal with you over the summer holidays to make a record of the adventures you have been on and the nature that you have found. Take it to the beach and draw shells, fish and seabirds. Take it to the pond and sketch the tadpoles, frogs and ducks. Stick any feathers that you find into your journal. Stick in a photo of you collecting natural treasures or j...

The days are starting to get longer and brighter and new shoots are poking through the soil. It feels so good that Spring is on it's way!

Now feels like a good time to share some of my favourite spring resources and books (as i get asked this question a lot!) to support your nature based play. All of the resources I share on here are my personal recommendations and are not advertisements.  It is also worth noting that it has taken a few years to collect the bought resources I show in the photos and nature based play can be done so effectively without any of these too! Just get outside and use the nature around you like we did when creating our Very Hungry Caterpillars out of twigs and leaves. 

I often get asked on my training around nature based play if this is something that can be done if you're in an urban area and the answer is yes! We can do nature study by opening up the curtains and watching the birds from our window, setting up a provocation on the northern lights inside...

A little space on a shelf will be just perfect, a collection in a shoe box or even a display in the middle of your dining table. It's a wonderful way to bring the connection with the great outdoors into your home and to celebrate the season.

You could include some seasonal spotter sheets, natural number cards and ways you've recorded your sightings. 

It can be something very simple found on a walk like a pinecone, a rock, flowers from the garden or a feather.

We like to add our drawings and paintings of the natural find too or a question on some card we've been curious about.

If you have the space you can maybe add some beautiful decorations you find of nature or a postcard that lights you up.

Here is a list of where you can find all the resources used in our winter bird nature table

Winter Nature Cards

Bird Spotter Sheet

Child Voice Nature Cards

Wanderlust Child Nature Journal

Wooden small world birds

Rock card holders

Counting pebbles

Wooden bird tree slice