My 8 year old daughter Sydney loves technology. If I let her, she would sit on the couch and play her DS all summer long. It is my goal to get her off the couch and to expand her mind this summer.
I decided that starting a nature club would get her outside away from the electronics. I searched my old standby "Pinterest" to get some free printables for our nature walk. You can see all of my nature club finds on my Pinterest page.
We invited Sydney's best friend, Gavin, and his big sister, Eva, to join us. Nature hunts are not just for Earth Day. I grabbed some clipboards and pens and printed out one of these ABC Nature Walk free printables.
They searched throughout our neighborhood to find something in nature for each letter of the alphabet. They did a great job of almost finding each letter.
I was even able to get my almost 3 year old involved in the fun. We did a second (simpler) nature scavenger hunt. This hunt did not require any writing. Since Lucas can't read yet, he had some help from his "assistant" Eva,
I printed these free printables and taped them onto brown paper lunch bags. We headed down to the park to fill our bags.
All three kids filled their bags. We spent about an hour completing both searches.
Since Lucas is only a toddler, he lost interest faster than the bigger kids. He spent some time hanging out on the swings.
Some of you may be asking, where was Ella (my 16 month old) during the nature walk? She sat happily in her wagon and cheered on the nature hunters. She also enjoyed a ride on the swings with my friend Eileen (Gavin and Eva's mom.)
I consider the day a success since that was one full hour with no electronics! For our next meeting of the nature club, the kids decided they wanted to "take care of our earth." That is their words! They want to walk around our neighborhood and clean it up. Check back to see if we end up doing that!
