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Now that the weather is getting nicer we are doing more on the go learning, so we need some great nature activities for preschoolers to enhance our learning on nature walks. Nature walks can be as elaborate as a hike or as easy as a walk around your neighborhood. You could even do a small nature walk in your yard! The goal is to be outside and learning at the same time.
Here are my top 5 nature activities for preschoolers or even toddlers.
1. Nature Hunt
A nature hunt is a perfect way to entertain littles on a nature walk. There are a few different nature hunts out there for you, but I have a a great set for the youngest of learners. There is a hunt for colors, for counting, and for the alphabet. Click below to grab yours. You can use it as a family or each child have their own. Want to make it last longer?? Laminate it and then they can use dry erase markers on them over and over again.
2. Nature Races
This one is kind of strange. Have races on a nature walk, aren’t you supposed to take your time and enjoy nature?? Well yes, but your could either do physical races up to a certain part of the trail or you could even do a race to see if they can find a certain item first. Kind of like I SPY. This would be a great transition in your walk because there is always that point that either they are “too tired to move” or they get stuck on a spot. This way you can move them along in the walk. Also if it is kind of a boring walk, you can use the looking races to keep things interesting. Then they will start to look around more and more to see things.
3. Unit Study about Nature Walk
This is a great nature activity for preschoolers to introduce something you want to find on the nature walk or to follow up a nature walk with something they found. For example, tomorrow you want to go on a nature walk and look for ladybugs, so today you start a unit study on ladybugs. For littles this could be as simple as getting ladybug books from the library and reading them. You could also do a craft where they make a ladybug. You could do a painting where they put a certain number of dots on the back of a ladybug. You could do a color by number of a ladybug. There are sooo many options. Once you are out on your nature walk, look for ladybugs. They are really hard to see so you will be stopping a ton. Or another example, you are out on a nature walk today and see an eagle in the air. So when you get home you look up eagles on the computer and let your little ones see other pictures of eagles. You go to the library and get eagle books. You can make a paper eagle or color a picture of an eagle. You can make a book about eagles. There is soo much to do with a unit study.
4. Nature Stories or Sentences
One other fun way to engage your preschoolers in some great nature activities without doing a huge unit study is to have them write a story or a sentence about their walk. They can draw a picture of what they saw (either while out and about or afterwards) and then they can write about it. BUT they can’t write yet, don’t worry, they can tell you their sentence or story and you can write it for them. This is a great pre-reading and pre-writing activity. It shows them soo much! They learn how to start at the beginning of the line and with a capital letter. They learn that the end has a period or exclamation mark. AND they know what it says, so they can “read” it over and over again! Need some great pages to help with this check out my Nature Handwriting Pack below. These pages along with some tracing pages are included so that you can continue the learning at home.
5. Nature Journal
Another one of the great nature activities for preschoolers is a nature journal. This can be super easy. Grab a journal or notebook from the store. Have them glue down any treasures they find or draw a picture if it is something that should not be removed from nature. Then have them write a sentence or two about the item or dictate the sentence for you to write. You could even use the pages above in the Nature Handwriting Pack to create your own journal. Print out the story page over and over again. Staple them together or bind them in a folder. Boom, nature journal. This is also a great way to discover what your child is picking up from their time in nature. You can focus learning from these journals.
