Nature activity

I have to admit that I’m enjoying this drought weather we’re having a little too much. I always plan for rainy day activities and rain dances with galoshes, but I’ve really enjoyed the lack of cabin fever in our house. We’ve made use of going on nature walks which to Patrick and Alice just mean a walk where we pick up a few things we haven’t seen or felt before. We are lucky that we live near very thoughtful neighbors who always share their bounty may it be hydrangeas, oranges, squash – whatever they’re growing. So they love when we walk around taking notes and asking questions about what flowers are growing in their yards.

Today we kept it simple and found things in our yard during our nature walk. It was a very slow day for exploring. One of those “let’s turn over every rock to see if we can find a worm” on it kinda days. I had Patrick and Alice locate things that had different textures and were from nature. We also have buckets, baseballs, etc in the backyard so we kept it all about what was natural.

After that, I put Alice down for a nap and had Patrick ready with a quiet time activity while I set up some afternoon art.

We had crayons, makers, and colored pencils and I had the kids draw our nature objects I laid out. It was an incredibly relaxing time and not much was said while creating. It was as slow and thoughtful during our backyard discovery earlier that morning and a great way for kids to learn about texture, nature, and art all together.