Like a bear waking up from her winter’s hibernation, each spring I find myself suddenly taken by an instinctual urge to get outside as much as possible. I want to work in my garden and yard, walk outside, listen to the birds, sit on my patio and breathe in the fresh air, and do just about every daily activity that is possible (from painting with my toddler to reading up on parenting and photography) outside.
And since my daily sidekick happens to be a 2 year old, I’ve been searching for ways to meet my need to be outside and her need to do fun stuff. While I do read several creative, crafty, and Montessori themed blogs, now and again, I do turn to commercial publications like FamilyFun(dot)Com (and please note, I have no affiliation with Family Fun, nor am I endorsing their site) to search for nifty things to do with Annabelle.
So last week, when I stumbled across the following activities from Family Fun, I was pretty psyched to get outside and get creative too. Here’s what we did:
Mini-Museum Gather six or so small or large empty milk carton (we used 3). Cut the tops off the cartons and glue or staple them together so the openings are all facing the same way. Let your child create a “museum” by filling the spaces with a collection of items: rocks, leaves, flowers, or whatever she chooses. She might choose a collection of all the same thing like rocks, or a collection of related items like those that are beautiful, hard, soft, etc. She might display a permanent collection, or a temporary exhibit that changes from time to time.
To collect items for Annabellel’s mini-museum, we took several walks through the woods and around our neighborhood. Annabelle is a magnificent finder of neat, small stuff, whereas I tend to search for items with texture and shape, like bark, odd looking leaves, and random left-over tree nuts from the fall.
After placing our items into the mini-museum, I waited a few days for Annabelle to play with her museum, taking each item out, touching it, smelling it, and just noticing something or other. Then we sat down and placed all the items on our kitchen table so that we might talk about what she’d found. She described and differentiated between the textures of items (smooth versus rough), described the color, the size, and the smell (if any). We also named our items.
After talking about the items in her museum, we sat down to make nature rubbings.
Nature Walk Rubbings Gather a few yards of thin white fabric or paper, and crayons, chalk, or pencils. Go for a walk with your child and look for natural things with texture or a textured pattern. Help him to place the fabric or paper over the item, and rub with the writing tools to make an impression magically appear.
Annabelle and I simply used white and cream colored construction paper and chunky green crayons. She struggled to hold her crayon, flat sided, against the paper with enough pressure to make a good rubbing, but she got a real kick out of it when I showed her how the crayon and paper could make an outline, or rubbing, of the item.
After making our nature rubbings, I pulled out our collage materials: glue, a cheap paint brush, and a small dish or cup to hold the glue. I then gave Annabelle 8X8 sheets of cardstock and told her to go to town with building her collages (we’ve done this activity before using pre-cut paper shapes).
Once she completed 4 collages, we set them out to dry. Annabelle displayed her nature collages on her picture board in our arts and craft room.
Pretty neat, huh?
For more creative fun with nature, we’ll likely try:
Matching and Sorting Nature When outside, find things from nature for your child to match and sort. Have him close his eyes while you gather a flower, stick, rock, or anything with more of the same nearby. Have him open his eyes and ask him to find matches for each. Or gather several handfuls of things: acorns, pine cones, stones, flowers, etc. Have him sort them into piles.
Match the Sounds Save, or ask a camera store for, several empty 35mm film canisters. Gather small items that make a distinctive sound when shaken in the canister: beans, rice, sand, crumbled pine needles, etc. Fill two canisters with the same items and glue the covers on. Make at least three pairs of shakers with different things in them. Mix up the canisters and see if your child can match up pairs of sounds by shaking and distinguishing between the different sounds.
It Measures Up Look for opportunities to show your child sizes. For younger children, talk about bigger or smaller, heavier or lighter, longer or shorter. For older kids, talk about big, bigger, biggest; heavy, heavier, heaviest; long, longer, longest. For example, give her two or three sticks of different lengths and ask, “Which stick is longer?” Or “Show me which is long, longer, and longest.”
What natural crafts do you have in mind for the spring and summer?
{ 3 comments }
abbie, oh my goodness! It’s sad that the raccoon is rabid, but at the same time, I hope animal control can find it so that no other animals and people are affected. Good idea to enjoy the outside with awareness . . . maybe take naps when your hubby is outside too?
Amanda, thank you! I just checked out Giddy Goat and am excited by your and your kiddos neat activities. Thanks for stopping by! :-)
I love the little museum idea. I’ll try this with my kids for sure.
What a neat activity, I love that museum idea. I’ve been getting outside as much as possible, too, especially to sit and read. When the sun is warm, it just makes so much more sense to be outside. Often I’ll end up drifting off to sleep in the warm sun after an especially busy day.
I’ve been much more cautious lately, since I spotted a rabid racoon a few days ago. I’m pretty sure it’s gone but I won’t be falling asleep outside any time soon.