Fun Friday Find: Nature Cards

After reflecting on my last post, I was thinking that some of you may be wanting to foster exploration in your kids and get them outside adventure-ing (my new word), but maybe you don’t know how, maybe you feel your kids aren’t naturally wired as explorers or maybe they’ve become “bored” with their typical outside play.  Well we hope that this post and some of the other Play posts we’ve done over the years will help equip and inspire you with tools and resources to help develop and foster this adventure and exploration outside.

So here’s today’s Fun Friday Find!  Recently My Resident Gardener and I got away to a quaint little town we love and while at the General Store I picked up a fun little gift to take back to our girls … a deck of 52 cards.  These are not a deck of playing cards though … they are 52 Nature Activities.  A great little deck of cards to encourage discovery and play outside.

Each of the 52 cards has a fun activity that you can do in your backyard or at a park or just about any outdoor space.  Some activities are educational, some are crafty, some are games and some are simply just for fun! The compact size of the deck of card makes it easy to take with you on any outdoor adventure and the simplicity of the activities makes them easy to execute even in your own backyard. They retail for about $7 and are produced by Chronicle Books (by Lynn Gordon).

Here’s an example of one of the cards:

“Pick up different pieces of nature and think about what other ways they could be used.  A rock could be used in the kitchen to grind things up.  A leaf could be used as a plate.  What other inventions can you come up with to give those pieces of nature a new function?” 

This could be a fun challenge for an afternoon and then have your kids bring their ideas to the dinner table or the fire pit for a fun discussion.  I could also see taking this further and encouraging my children to transfer these ideas into their pretend play and use them in the innovative ways they came up with.

I think I just might propose this to my girls … that is as soon as it warms back up.  These below freezing temperatures this week are making it hard to get outside and play.  But I keep reminding myself … Spring is just around the corner!

What easy nature activities with your kids have you done that have encouraged them to get outside? Please share.

Enjoy,

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