Reconnect with your Family
Some of the best memories are made in nature. Find a forest or park near you and GET OUTDOORS!
www.DiscovertheForest.org
Superscript
Activities for Families at Your Local Park
Whether you live in the city or the country, here are a few ways you can help your child
become a nature adventurer.
Hunt for Habitats
Take some time to discover the animals and insects that share your neighborhood. What critters live near you? What can you figure out about where they live, what they do, and what they eat? Take a walk around the block or through a local park to look for clues. These might include:
Animal tracks: Look for animal tracks in the dirt, mud, sand or snow. Were they made by a big animal or a small animal? A mammal or a bird? If you find an unusual track, snap a picture and identify it at home using online resources such as NatureTracking.
Creature structures: Hunt for bird nests in trees, in shrubs, or nestled against buildings. What size and shape is it? What materials is it made of? What other creature homes can you find: Squirrel or rabbit nests? Ant hills? Deer dens? Wasp nests? Spider webs? Mouse burrows?
Go on a Bug Hunt
How many bugs can you find in an afternoon? Here are a few places to look:
Rocks: Gently pick up a rock and look underneath. Chances are you will find a few little creatures who have made their home in the cool dirt.
Wood: Hollow logs and fallen branches often become home to all kinds of bug life.
Ponds: Ponds are full of activity — and a great place to use a net to catch, observe, and release insects.
Flowers beds: Many insects, including butterflies and bees, use flowers as a food source.
Listen to Bird Songs
We’ve all heard bird calls floating through the air, but how many of us can identify which feathered friend is singing? Listen carefully to a bird song with your child, then try to mimic the sound you hear. Look around and see if you can spot the singer. Want to take your birding to the next level? Use the resources at Cornell University’s bird lab – including their free app Merlin – to identify the birds you see and hear!
Go on a Night Walk
Some creatures remain largely hidden during the day. After the sun goes down, take a walk around your neighborhood and search for signs of nocturnal animals and bugs. Depending on the time of year and your location, you might see or hear the following:
Crickets
Bats
Foxes
Racoons
Owls
Deer
Mice
Rats
Geckos
Salamanders
Fireflies
Skunks
Hedgehogs
Raccoons
Toads
Plan a Trip to a Zoo, Nature Reserve, or Local Farm
To expand your child’s experience with animals beyond the neighborhood, plan an outing to a zoo, aquarium, Audubon center, nature center, or farm near you.
Enjoying Your Local Park
March 2020
With busy schedules and alluring electronics inside the home, it is often difficult to give your children the time outdoors you enjoyed as a child.
Encourage your children to watch for wildlife. There is often wildlife at parks including birds, bugs and sometimes larger friends. Children can log the wildlife they see into a notebook, create drawings or take photos.
Go on a scavenger hunt. Work together to create a list of items you could see in a park like a leaf, a pinecone, sand, a swing, a fence etc.
Draw a nature map of your local park. Walk the park and then have your children draw the map of the park including important features and details from your walk.
Picnic in the park. Your sandwich often tastes better when you are sitting in a beautiful park. Bring a blanket and your favorite foods to enjoy the nice weather. Don’t forget to pick up your trash and to recycle.
Walk. Before or after dinner, take some time to walk together as a family. Discuss what happened during the day while getting a little exercise.
Running games. Teach your children to play “Hide and Seek,” “Red light/Green light” or “Red Rover’” Or with keep it simple by establishing a friendly competition running from one side of the neighborhood park to the other.
Create your own Olympic Games. Who has the fastest time running from one tree to another? How many high jumps can you do in one minute? Use the resources in your neighborhood park to create an Olympic Games for your family.
Make art from nature. Press flowers, glitter pinecones or draw part of your favorite park. Bring a little bit of nature back home with you.
Play with dirt and mud. Bring a shovel or even better, use your hands to dig your way to China. Create mud structures and mud pies. Let your children have the opportunity to get really dirty while learning how to play and be creative by themselves.
Watch the clouds. There is nothing better than to spend some time cloud watching in a park on a sunny day. Lie down on the grass and start to identify shapes.
Start a rock collection. Collect all different shapes and sizes, colors and surfaces. Another great way to bring a bit of the outdoors home with you.
Play in your park during the winter. Bundle up and head out to the park with a sled or a trash bag to fly down the hill on snowy days. Make a snowman or snow angels.
Most importantly, keep toys and electronics to a minimum when visiting a park. That goes for parents also; leave the smart phone and paperwork in your purse or car. It is important to teach your children to have down time away from all electronics. It also will decrease your stress to slow down and enjoy nature.
Muddy Smiles and Happy Boots
Finding fun ways to keep kids active sometimes requires thinking outside the backyard. With indoor physical play opportunities limited by COVID-19, why not take advantage of a few hikes on local trails before temperatures turn cooler? A trek through the colorful changing leaves to see some new terrain can be especially beneficial to kids.
If you need a reason to inspire your tribe to take to the trail, try nature treasure hunting and starting a new nature collection. Or how about celebrating National Hiking Day on November 17th? Also called Take a Hike Day, the event is all about helping people of all ages get enthusiastic about hiking and learn more about how to protect and preserve America's beautiful national trail system. It's the perfect prompt to break out your trail guide and backpack, and as it turns out, kids reap more than a great workout from hiking -- there's psychological, cognitive, and social benefits on offer, too.
Four Reasons to Love Hiking
1. Hiking encourages free play
Free play refers to the unstructured, self-led play and exploration kids naturally engage in when left to their own devices. It prompts them to use critical and creative thinking, develop social skills, and refine motor skills, all of which are developmentally beneficial. [Source]
2. Hiking inspires kids to test their limits
Testing boundaries helps children develop both logic and confidence, and it's a normal and important part of growing up When kids hike, they'll have opportunities to test their physical skills and their limits within reasonable boundaries and with adult supervision. [Source]
3. Hiking can boost energy levels
Wondering how to get your sleepy teen's energy levels up a bit? Encourage them to come for a hike, which can boost their levels of alertness, especially if friends are invited along for social time. [Source]
4. Hiking can improve executive function
Executive function describes the skills used to choose priorities, solve problems, make a decision or follow through with a plan. Kids begin to develop these skills in unstructured social situations with others, especially outdoors; hiking can present unique challenges compared to other outdoor play, prompting critical thinking. [Source]
The National Recreation and Park Association’s mission is to advance parks, recreation, and environmental conservation efforts that enhance the quality of life for all people.
Nature as a Stress Relief for Kids (PBS)
The good news is that, even in cities and small spaces, we can bring nature into our lives to reap some of the benefits.
PBS for Kids-Parents
Family that plays together,
stays together
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KIDS IN NATURE
You’ve probably heard about kids not getting outdoors and in nature enough these days. The good news is you don’t have to be an expert on the outdoors to take kids into nature! Kids are curious beings. Taking the time to look and discover is more important than knowing the names of everything or how things work.
Kids are natural explorers outside, so your biggest challenge will be getting them back indoors. Others may not be used to bugs, dirt and the freedom to look around and discover, so it may take a little encouragement.
Let’s get outside! Whether you are a parent, friend, babysitter, educator here are 7 fun ideas for getting kids outside in nature.
Tiny Explorers: All you have to do is make sure they are safe and they will figure out the rest. Walking on spongy grass, dabbling in puddles – who doesn’t love puddles – or feeling the roughness of a big log and learning the words to describe what they are feeling in nature is all part of the experience.
Beaches on Lakes, Rivers or the Ocean: These are great spots for exploring. There are almost always bugs, shells and rocks to find. And of course water and sand make for endless opportunities for building castles and moats. Look for Learn-to-Swim classes, too. Lessons will help kids (and you) feel more at ease on the waterfront.
Stream Watchers: Shallow rocky streams are also intriguing – especially for more active kids that like to climb on rocks or logs, launch sticks and watch them float down stream, and look for fish, frogs, stream insects and snails. Avoid fast moving or deep streams that can be hazardous. Remember to put any animals back where you found them as that is their home.
Young Scientists: If your child has a deep interest in nature, they might like keeping a nature notebook like a real scientist. This boy was learning about logs in a program at Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve. How big is the log, were there holes, is there moss ora mushroom on it; did you see any insects or other animals on or inside it? Or collect some leaves – how many kinds can you find? Or draw pictures of the different insects and caterpillars one finds in the garden of meadow.
Bird and butterfly watching: This takes a bit more patience, waiting and watching, to see birds, butterflies or even dragonflies! But it is amazing what you can see when you take the time to watch. This activity is good for older kids as it takes some skill to focus the binoculars. Younger kids can practice using binoculars made from cardboard tubes. If you are new to this, look for guided programs aimed at young people or families.
Youth with binoculars, photo by USDA
Get the Bug: Get a little butterfly net and see what you can find. This can be a good prop for kids who get bored with walks or just looking at stuff. Swinging a net, whether or not it catches anything, can be fun. Best to learn what bees and wasps look like first though, and to aim for the butterflies and moths instead. Look for fun pollinator activities at parks near you- these activities are for kids of all ages.
Bike Riding: Bike riding in parks is great way to see and hear nature. You would be surprised at how much one is learning even when not specifically focused on looking at the trees, the birds or the bugs. Animals will dart across the trail or scurry away as you get closer, birds will be singing, and you will pass by hundreds of different species of plants (trees, wildflowers, ferns), increasing your awareness of the diversity of the natural world. Having a physical activity and a sense of accomplishment from a bike ride or a hike can help sustain interest in getting outdoors. Check out trail maps on parks’ websites and remember your helmets!
Some State Parks trails are great for bicycling, photo by Josh Teeter
What to do when you don’t know the answers?
What is it? Kids will ask but they don’t expect you to always have an answer. Feel free to say you don’t know, but take the time to look a little closer to explore together. “Hmmm, it is some kind of animal – see how it hops. It is very tiny. Can you see its eyes?” or “What a nice flower. Do you think the bees like it? Let’s watch to see if any bees or butterflies or other insects come to the flowers to feed. They like the sweet nectar.” A tip from educators: don’t reply with “it’s just a bug” or “just a flower”because everything is novel and interesting.
What is it doing? See if they can come up with an idea of what the animal is doing. Are they swimming, jumping, sunning, sleeping, searching for food, talking (in animal language), fighting, or running away. Why are they running away? Why do they burrow in the sand? If you don’t know, children often come up with pretty good ideas about what is going on if you encourage them to take the time to watch.
Peterson First Guides: A series of small, inexpensive books on insects, wildflowers, mammals, caterpillars, seashores, birds, and other topics. Highly recommended for young and old as an introduction and guide to more common plants and animals one might encounter.
Backyard Birds (Field Guides for Young Naturalists) by Karen Stray Nolting, Jonathon Latimer and Roger Tory Peterson 1999.
The Secret Lives of Backyard Bugs by Judy Burris and Wayne Richards 2011.
The Bumper Book of Nature: A User’s Guide to the Great Outdoors by Stephen Moss 2010.
The Tree Book for Kids and Their Grown-ups by Gina Ingolgia 2013. Published by Brooklyn Botanic Garden and full of questions and answers about trees in both city and countryside.
Post by Julie Lundgren, NY Natural Heritage Program. The author grew up exploring the back yard and woods and has spent a lifetime working as an environmental educator and ecologist.
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WINTER fUN FOR fAMILES
Eight Great Winter Activities to Try in a National Park
REBECCA WATSON
Denali National Park & Preserve - NPS Photo
Our national parks offer incredible recreational opportunities, no matter the time of the year you decide to visit. But during the winter months, unique activities can connect you to the wilderness, landscapes, and wonder of our national parks. Whether you’re a pro or just looking to try something new, winter is a great time to discover new activities you can enjoy. Explore just a few of the things you can find when you escape to a winter wonderland!CHASE WINTER WATERFALLS
Frozen waterfall at Apostle Islands National LakeshoreNPS PhotoWhile waterfalls are a magnificent sight no matter the season, wintery, frozen waterfalls have a certain splendor of their own. Icy columns of the waterfall create a magical scene that glistens in the sunlight. From the cliffs of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore to the iconic falls of Yosemite, colder temperatures have a way of transforming waterfalls into spectacular landscapes. Take a hike to your favorite waterfall in the winter to see it in a new way or discover one of the hundreds of waterfalls in parks across the country and find a new favorite!STRAP ON YOUR SNOWSHOES
Snowshoeing in Gates of the Arctic National Park & PreserveNPS Photo / Laurie SmithWho doesn’t love a new winter accessory? Strap snowshoes onto your favorite pair of hiking boots and get out there! If you’re venturing to remote parks like Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve, snowshoeing can be a great way to explore some of the more solitary parts of the park, offering a great opportunity to reflect on the picturesque landscapes around you. If you’re more a pack animal than a lone wolf, try a ranger-led guided snowshoe tour in parks like Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore or Crater Lake National Park. No matter how you get out there, snowshoeing is a unique way to explore and learn about a park.TRAVERSE A PARK ON SKIS
Cross country skiing at Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National ParkNPS Photo / Alex Gary GareisIf you’re ready to take your snowy hikes to the next level, don a pair of skis and gear up to hit the slopes. Keep to a slower pace by replacing your snowshoes with a pair of cross-country skis, perfect for exploring parks with lots of ground to cover like Acadia or Mesa Verde National Parks. But if you have a need for speed, whisk down snow-covered hills in parks like Glacier or Rocky Mountain National Parks. Whether it's downhill or cross-country skiing, this classic winter activity offers unparalleled park views.FIND YOUR SLEDDING PARADISE
Sledding at Lassen Volcanic National ParkNPS PhotoIf you’re looking for a lower-impact way to hit the slopes, channel your inner child and enjoy afternoon of smooth sledding down sloping hills in a park. And the best part? You don’t even have to brave freezing winter temperatures to enjoy this family-friendly activity. With sand-sledding opportunities in parks like Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve or White Sands National Park, you can soak up some sun while you enjoy whooshing down a hill. So pick up a sled and cruise downhill in style in parks all across the country.SPOT SOME WINTER WILDLIFE
Bison in Yellowstone National ParkNPS Photo / Jacob W. FrankIt might be chilly, but that doesn’t stop the wildlife who call our parks home! Some animals are active during the winter months and can be spotted on your visit. In Yellowstone National Park, spot an iconic bison warming up in the park’s hydrothermal areas or roaming packs of wolves, a park species recently reintroduced to the park through the support of NPF. And don’t worry – there are warmer weather options out there too. Check out a colony of elephant seals from Elephant Seal Overlook at Point Reyes National Seashore or go bird watching at Padre Island National Seashore, where you can track birds flying along a major migration route.GO (ICE) FISH!
Ice fishing in Mississippi National River and Recreation AreaNPS PhotoRethink what it means to cast a line and try your hand at ice-fishing in a park this winter. In parks like Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area where ice fishing is possible – ice must be very thick to support the weight of those fishing – dedicated anglers brave the winter temperatures to wrangle fish. While fishing on ice might seems daunting to some, park staff are more than ready to help newcomers. Try a public ice fishing event or an ice fishing workshop at Mississippi National River and Recreation Area to help you get started. And if you’re looking to make fishing a family affair, no matter the season, check out the Junior Ranger Angler program in parks across the country. Supported by NPF, this program helps kids get hooked on fishing!REACH NEW HEIGHTS ON THE ICE
Ice climbing at Pictured Rocks National LakeshoreNPS PhotoSwitch up your climbing experience by learning new skills to go ice climbing in park this winter. Parks across the country, including City of Rocks National Reserve, Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore allow visitors to (safely!) climb their frozen landscapes in winter months and parks with icy conditions year-round, like Glacier National Park or Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve, offer ice climbing in the summer months. New to ice climbing? Check out our ice climbers guide for some tips and tricks to get you started, and make sure you’re properly prepped before you start your climb.DISCOVER A PARK BY STARLIGHT
Milky Way galaxy over Joshua Tree National ParkNPS Photo / Lian LawIf you’re looking for a winter park activity that perfectly pairs with a hot cup of cocoa, there’s nothing better than stargazing. With shorter days and longer nights, winter is a great time to wrap up in a blanket and gaze at the stars. Spot winter constellations Orion, Sirius, Gemini, and Taurus while camping out at Joshua Tree National Park, take in the magnificent Milky Way galaxy from Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, or watch a meteor shower at Death Valley National Park. And if you want to take a picture to capture your stargazing experience, check out our astrophotography guide. As always, make sure you know before you go by checking weather and park conditions before you head out to ensure you can #RecreateResponsibly! As with any activity, follow safety measures to ensure you and everyone else can enjoy winter activities in parks for years to come. WINTER WONDERLANDS TRAVEL GUIDEImmerse yourself in the beauty found only by experiencing winter in these national park wonderlands! Explore winter activities in 15 national parks, from stargazing to sledding and more!GET YOUR FREE TRAVEL GUIDE
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Getting ‘into’ Nature
From the Awesome Take them Outside website
Getting ‘into’ nature isn’t just about getting outside… it’s also about incorporating nature appreciation, and nature play into our lives even when we’re stuck indoors.
Here you’ll find all the fun ideas, tips, gear suggestions, and inspiration you need for outdoor family fun. Get both indoor and outdoor nature play suggestions. You’ll read about scavenger hunts, outdoor games, nature appreciation, backyard play, nature crafting, gardening with kids, books, nature study, and more!
Outdoor Nature Play and Activities
Start here – favorite outdoor family reads
Outdoor Activities for you and your kids
Getting outside in the spring & summer
Getting outside in the fall
Getting outside in the winter
Thoughts & tips about getting kids outside
Keeping busy with nature activities (calendar and bucketlist)
Subscription boxes for active and adventuresome people and families
Teaching children kindness, gratitude, mindfulness in nature
Organizing your outdoor toys and keeping kids entertained with backyard toy rotation