Backyard Projects & Activities: Encourage dirty hands with these fun outdoor activities you can do right at home.
Outdoor art, crafts & Activities
After working in art museums for over a decade, it can be hard for me to introduce a new concept without using the arts as a pedagogical tool! When we’re not out and about, the boys can often be find in our backyard “art studio,” creating with foraged materials or exploring through sensory play.
Nature Walks
Some of my favorite mornings with the kids involve walking the trails at one of our local parks. The boys are usually happy to go, but every now and again we all need some extra motivation to head outside. The following ideas are designed to help on those days when the usual walk has lost some of its appeal.
Growing up gardeners
Like countless others, we started a quarantine-garden in the spring of 2020. It gave us more to do outdoors, and taught all of us about the work that goes into growing our favorite fruits and vegetables. We also discovered the challenges of gardening in a small “yard” with uneven patches of sun! Here’s where I share our favorite ideas for gardening with kids at home and at our favorite community garden.
Outdoor Time Can Be Fun and Easy Family Time
When people think of an “outdoorsy” family, they likely imagine people straight out of a Patagonia ad. That’s not us.
The truth is, getting outside with your kids and helping them build nature connections doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Kenny Ballentine’s “Nature Connection Pyramid” illustrates what a balanced nature diet can look like. The vast majority of time is spent playing outside near home or at a local park. Easy peasy!
Unstructured outdoor playtime is the foundation of the pyramid, but as you move up to weekly Nature Exploring, a plan can help. On this page we share projects and activities that can help you share outdoor time together. This can be as simple as making time for closer looks on your neighborhood walk or as messy as using mud for your next masterpiece.
In these posts, we offer some simple tutorials and our own stories and experiences in the hopes of making it easier for others to get outside together.
The Latest Backyard Adventures
Strawberry Planter Ideas for Small Space Gardening
We finally succeeded in growing strawberries and now we want more! Shallow root systems make strawberries ideal container plants, so we did some research to find the best strawberry planter ideas for small spaces. Check out our favorites here.
Painting with Mud
Mud painting easily combines sensory play, art making, and exploring the natural world. Use our simple mud paint recipe for hours of backyard fun in any season.
Bug Hotels: The Ultimate Guide to Building a Backyard Insect Shelter
The ultimate guide to building a responsible Bug Hotel! Find out how to create fun spaces to help out your garden’s beneficial insects.
Making Nature Mobiles: Our Kind of Bat Mobile
From modern art museums to nurseries, people of all ages love mobiles. Nature mobiles offer a creative way to showcase items brought back from your latest nature walk, and they make for some pretty fun DIY seasonal decor ideas too! Check out my new Halloween favorite, the Bat Mobile, here!
Recipes for Edible Slime: The Marshmallow vs. Jello Test
Looking for a fun but simple project that will shift the whole family’s attention outside? Make some classic milk carton bird feeders together. Sometimes our favorite crafts are oldies but goodies for a reason!
Classic Milk Carton Bird Feeders
Looking for a fun but simple project that will shift the whole family’s attention outside? Make some classic milk carton bird feeders together. Sometimes our favorite crafts are oldies but goodies for a reason!