Just as soon as the frigid winter leaves us and spring flowers bloom, my kids and I are rearing to get outdoors and into nature! Below, I’ll share some of our favorite activities to do in the spring time.
Foraging
One my personal favorite activities is foraging! It is so neat to discover edible plants in nature and learn all about them. It seems like there is no ceiling to what you can learn in God’s creation. Everything points to him! The complexity of his creation is mind boggling. My kids have so enjoyed finding wild blackberries, strawberries, honeysuckles and more.
I grew up eating honeysuckles in the spring and early summertime. There is just something so nostalgic about going on a walk and with your kids and enjoying the sweetness from a honeysuckle. I bought two foraging books for my kids and I to spend time looking through, which has been very educational for all of us! The books are: Southeast Medicinal Plants and The Foraging Bible. I also love the app, “Picture This.” It allows you to take a picture of plants and will identify them for you.
I have tried to be very clear with my children that they are only to eat plants that I tell them are safe. We only forage with our kids that are old enough to be trusted and follow directions. It has been such a joy to watch my kids grow in their knowledge about plants and truly love the outdoors.
Butterflies
Is there anything more fascinating than watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly? For several years now, we have ordered tiny baby caterpillars and gotten to walk through their whole life cycle. It is such a great educational experience for kids.
The kit comes with 5 baby caterpillars in a jar of food. They stay in the jar until they attach themselves to the mesh under the lid and form into their chrysalides. Take the lid off and with the clip that is provided, you attach the mesh lid with the chrysalides to the wall of a butterfly habitat.
The chrysalides stay there until they finally emerge as butterflies! The kit also explains how to make easy butterfly food with sugar water. Then, it is time to release the butterflies outside. This is always so exciting for our kids! After we release the butterflies, I rinse out the habitat and store it for next year. The only thing you have to buy each year is the kit with caterpillars.
Each day our kids check in on their butterfly babies to see if they have decided to come out. It’s so fun! We even left the jar in front of a baby monitor once when we went out of town so we could see the progress.
Playing in a Creek
I believe every kid needs an adventure down in a creek. Everything they stumble upon is a learning topic or an opportunity for make believe play! We spend hours every spring and summer in creeks. There are a few creeks near us that I like to frequent. I have learned to come prepared with several items:
- A towel
- Change of clothes
- Buckets/shovels/mesh sifters
- Plastic bag for wet clothes
- Croc like shoes/boots for the kids that don’t like the feel of the rocks under them
- I also love these sanitizing wipes for on the go cleaning!
Most of the time, my kids think of their own activities while playing in the creek. They will play restaurant and cook up some mud pie soup with rocks on the side. Or they try to find the prettiest rocks to bring home. Sometimes, it’s a water throwing, minnow catching, duck chasing mess. But it is fun, and the kids are outdoors enjoying childhood in the purest way possible.
Strawberry Picking
Where we live, May is strawberry season. You better believe we drop everything on a warm spring day in May to turn our fingers red and pick as many strawberries as we can fit into our bucket. My kids get caught quite literally red handed eating a few strawberries in the process. It’s such a sweet time with my kids, picking our strawberries and making plans for what we will do with them.
Most will get eaten right away when we get home. But, we always save some to make homemade strawberry jam! It’s so delicious. After we pick our berries, we get strawberry ice cream that is made on site at the local farm we go to! There are multiple wonderful strawberry farms around us to go to, but we have loved going to Ingram Strawberry Farm.
Activities Conclusion
These simple, easy and educational activities for kids are fun for adults too. I would much rather have my children look back on their childhood and remember all the life we lived outdoors rather than all the movies we watched. I want to invest in them and cultivate their inquisitive and imaginative side. There’s so many opportunities to talk about God with our kids when we slow down and have fun in his creation.
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I remember how creative you were, playing outside when you were young! The imaginary rooms you built with sticks and “meals” you “cooked!” ❤️