Outdoor Activities for Kids: Ideas & Tips
Outdoor play is crucial in a child’s development. It leaves them with more advanced motor skills, including balance, coordination, and agility.
Because of advanced technologies like electronic devices, this generation’s childhood is much different from ours. The bluntest contrast we can point out is how much they spend indoors. It’s a challenge for every parent to keep their kids entertained without having to resort to gadgets. Children should be encouraged to play outside. To lessen the times you hear the words, “I’m so bored,” you must plan ahead and make a list of fun outdoor activities for your kids. You may also want to visit PlayEatGrow site for more parenting advice and tips.
Outdoor activities are not only fun for kids but also educational and beneficial for their physical and mental health. That’s why we have put together a list of fun ideas for outdoor activities that are not only boredom-busting but also encourage creative thinking, coordination, problem-solving, and a lot more.
Squirt Gun Painting
This activity is a fun and exciting summer art experience for kids and is the holy grail for busting out your child’s boredom.
Simply put out an easel in your backyard. Clip a sheet of watercolor paper to both sides. Let your kids help you fill their squirt guns with water-diluted paint. Now that it’s filled up, they can squirt away! Make sure to dry the paintings in the grass and weigh it down with a rock to prevent them from being blown away.
Color Scavenger Hunt
This next activity teaches your little kids to learn color coordination while they hunt. Older kids can discover a variety of hues that they can find around them. The concept of this activity is to let your kids run around a supervised area unearthing things from nature like rocks, soil, twigs, grass, leaves, and flowers; then match them to each color on the printout that you prepared. Now you know how this works; it’s time to step outside. Ready, set, go!
Make Shadow Art
This STEAM outdoor activity will help your kids learn what a shadow is and the science behind it through a fun experience. To start with, invite your kids to block the sun’s light using their bodies to create a shadow. Then, ask them to paint their shadows to create a masterpiece—the shadow art!
Stack Those Rocks
Rock or stone stacking is also a STEAM activity that doubles as a meditative form of art. This wonderful activity teaches your kids to be calm as they try to balance and stack the rocks on top of each other to make beautiful stone cairns.
Make Mud Pies!
This is a classic outdoor play that has been enjoyed for generations! You’ve probably served mud pies to your family and friends too when you were little! Kids love imaginative plays, and what could be better than serving make-believe dishes in their own outdoor mud kitchen! Setting up your kids’ mud kitchen is easy peasy. You can use an old table that’s just about your kids’ height. Bring out your old frying pans and saucepans, a bowl or bucket to hold water, spoons, and whisk for stirring up a muddy treat—yum!
For your mud pie ingredients, you can dig up the soil in your backyard or buy a bag of soil from your local garden store. Instead of throwing your wilting flowers and leaves, add them to the ingredient list!
Now that your mud pie is ready, Bon appetit!
Play Freeze Tag!
Probably the most famous and fun classic game that brings the neighborhood kids together to play! This game helps develop physical skills in kindergarten-aged children.
To start the game, one player is “It” and must chase the players. Tagged players must remain frozen in place until a non-It player tags them. A new It is chosen, and play begins again when all the players are frozen. Ready to play? Tag you’re it!
Water Wars
Make the best of summer by making DIY sponge water bombs—well, as long as no one minds getting soaked! This activity is so much fun even adults will surely enjoy it. And it doesn’t cost much, just a pack of sponges and rubber bands. You need to cut each sponge into eight equal strips. Bind the sponge strips together around the middle with a rubber band. Place them in a bowl of water for a few seconds, and you’re all set. How easy is that? Now, get ready to get wet!
Now that everyone is having fun, eventually, someone will get fed up with catching a splash of water in the eyes. You can set up a “no-shoot” zone in the yard, and anyone standing in that zone is off-limits. Whoever breaks the rules gets a time-out from the fun. This will also help your kids learn how to follow the rules.
Now that you’ve listed all these fun outdoor activities, which do you want to try first?
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