The little nature lovers in your family likely love getting outdoors and enjoying nature. There are so many opportunities for family fun outside. However, there will be plenty of times when the weather isn’t suitable for outdoor activities.
Whether it’s too rainy, too hot, or too cold, you may need to focus on creating indoor fun instead. Fortunately, you can have it both ways. Here are seven innovative ways to bring nature indoors without reaching for the TV remote.
Plan an Indoor Nature Scavenger Hunt
Whether your children are enrolled in childcare Bunbury centers, daycare, preschool, or another form of childcare, they are likely familiar with scavenger hunts. They are a great way to boost cognitive skills like memory and problem-solving through active learning. While most scavenger hunts take place outside, you can bring them inside at home!
Collect natural or nature-inspired items like pine cones, rocks, feathers, leaves, and toy animals, and hide them around the house. Once in place, create a written or image-based checklist so children can cross them off as they find them. Best of all, scavenger hunts are not a single-use activity. You can choose new items and hiding places and play multiple times!
Create a Miniature Indoor Garden
Whether you lack space outdoors or want your children to experience the same plant-growing magic indoors as they do outside, a miniature indoor garden is a wonderful idea. Source pots or recycled containers and grow flowers, herbs, and other fun plants.
Not only can children enjoy watching something they’ve planted come to life, but they can also take ownership by watering them, tracking growth, and even giving their plants names! If you prefer fast-growing plants to keep the kids engaged and interested, plant microgreens like cress, dwarf varieties of sunflowers, and runner beans.
Read Nature Books
If you want to take a break from the messy activities and choose something nature-inspired that doesn’t require clean-up, you can’t go wrong with a nature book. Ask your children questions about their favorite animals, seasons, plants, and ecosystems, and find books that cover these topics.
If you don’t have such books at home, take a trip to the library to borrow them or print reading materials from the internet. Your children may be surprised by the interesting nature facts they can learn.
Perform Science Experiments
Keeping the kids entertained for hours on end when outdoor activities aren’t possible can be hard, but you can’t go wrong with science experiments with a nature foundation. There are so many possibilities that don’t require a trip to a supplies store. You can melt ice, make a rain cloud in a jar using shaving cream and food coloring, and observe insects through a magnifying glass, just to name a few!
Make Nature-Themed Art
Arts and crafts activities don’t always have to involve messy painting supplies and stained clothing. You can create far less messy art using natural materials and glue. A number of items can help create the perfect masterpiece, like pinecones, stones, leaves, and twigs. However, if you do feel like hauling the paint supplies out of storage, you can let your kids flex their creative muscles and paint rocks.
Create Nature Sensory Bins
Sensory bins are containers filled with different materials, along with a cup or scoop. They are designed to provide open-ended, hands-on play to stimulate the various senses: touch, sight, and sound.
According to the Occupational Therapy Institute of Salus University, sensory bins are an opportunity for sensory exploration, improve motor skills, support cognitive development, and can be a quiet, calming activity. A number of materials can be suitable for sensory bins, including pebbles, water, soil, sand, and rice. For hands-on exploration, add toy insects, sticks, leaves, and scoops.
Go On an Indoor Camping Adventure
The weather may not be ideal for camping, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get into the spirit of camping! Create a camping adventure inside. Make forts using household furniture, blankets, and sheets, lay out blankets on the ground, and pretend to camp. You can also tell campfire stories, but without the real campfire, of course!
You might even decide to take your indoor camping adventure one step further by ‘camping’ overnight in your fort and eating delicious camp food like microwave smores, trail mix, cheese and crackers, and roasted cinnamon rolls.
Not being able to go outside doesn’t mean you can’t experience and enjoy nature. Bring it inside! The kids are bound to have endless fun when you create indoor gardens, read nature books, create nature-inspired art, and go camping without leaving the house.
