There is a week or two left of the school and college holidays and hopefully a few more weeks of sun before we all start wrapping up again. Here are a few ideas for outdoor activities you might like to do with your family, your group or your class to make the most of the last of the summer sun.
Journey Stick
The Woodland Trust’s online learning hub Tree Tools for Schools has loads of fun outdoor activities for all seasons. I particularly like the Journey Stick. You can download a colourful PDF of how to do the activity here. The idea is that you pick up a stick at the start of your walk then tie your finds to the stick as you walk. This could make a great souvenir of a family day out, a conversation starter for later work about your walk, or a prompt for art used to recall the colours of summer and the things you saw outside.
You may want to go prepared with a stick in case nature doesn’t provide (especially if going in a group). You may also want to allocate a certain number of ready cut pieces of string or wool per walker – if you take the whole ball you may end up bringing the whole woods home 😀.
Egg Box Scavenger Hunt
This idea is also thanks to Tree Tools for Schools (there is so much on there – do have a look). I love a scavenger hunt and have done them with my students for all seasons, indoors and out (indoor Christmas ones are fun) but I’ve never done one with an egg box before. It looks a great idea. The Woodland Trust provide a great PDF, which you can find here, which tells you how to set up the egg box and gives you ideas you criteria for collecting items e.g. texture – fluffy, soft, rough etc.
You could use the criteria they have suggested or invent your own. Colour would be a straightforward one to choose – yellow, white, brown, green etc. You could make it more challenging by including dark green and light green. Or perhaps look for specific objects like a pebble, a feather, a flower, a leaf and so on. If you have access to symbols you could use these to label the egg box.
It might be handy to have a roll of clear sticky tape in your pocket – just to help the scavenged items stay in the egg boxes.
Make a Nature Mandala
A mandala is a circular pattern with repeated elements. A quick google will find lots of examples of mandalas to look at and show your young people. There are also lots of downloadable mandalas that you could print if you have youngsters who like colouring. A mandala is also a fun thing to make with items from nature, you could even make it outside. Step 1 is to take a walk and gather lots of things you could use to make your mandala – leaves, flowers, pebbles, sticks, feathers and so on. Because a mandala contains repeated elements then multiples of things are good. Step 2 is to make the mandala. You could either take your items home/back to class to make the mandala or you could find a nice clear space on your walk and make your mandala outside. Making a large mandala as a group is a lovely working together activity. It’s a good idea to have an iPad or something along to photograph the activity/completed mandala. I have done this activity before with wheelchair users who weren’t able to reach down and add their item themselves. To support their access I used a PE hoop placed on the floor to give the circular shape and a ramp (a piece of drainpipe cut through to form a u). The students placed the item at the top of the ramp and it rolled down to land within the circle.
Make a Nature Sensory Bottle
There are lots and lots of versions of this activity on the internet but I like the one on The Chaos and The Clutter who explain the activity well. All you need is an empty plastic bottle per person! You simply go on a walk and fill your bottle with items you find. Obviously the size of the neck of the bottle dictates what you can fit in but you can still fit plenty of things in a bottle with a small neck – small pebbles, flowers, sticks, shells, leaves, seeds, acorns etc. Some websites suggest filling the bottles with water or oil and then sealing the lid. The bottles are likely to only keep for a limited amount of time as some items will be probably be moist. But you can wash them out and use them again to collect Autumn things🍁.
Find all the Colours of the Rainbow
Again a quick search of the internet will find lots of variations on this theme and many printable collecting sheets to use. You could also prepare your own sheets/cards by asking the young people to draw/paint or colour a rainbow in wide strips on a piece of card (cut up cardboard boxes) or paper. All you need then is a roll of clear sticky tape or some double sided sticky tape stuck across the rainbow. Head out for your walk and stick on the things you find in the colours of the rainbow. In late summer, as we are now, you might even find some blackberries.
I hope this post has given you some ideas for making the most of the last of the summer weather. If you have access to iPads or cameras you might like our post ‘Challenge them to some Photo Fun this Summer‘ too.
