You were probably told as a kid to get outside and play rather than watching TV or playing games inside. Now it’s your turn to get your kids outdoors for fresh air, exercise, and potentially some family bonding with 20 fun and rewarding outdoor activities for kids and the rest of the family.
Most of the items on the list provide fun as well as a learning experience which is important for kids of all ages. These types of activities can provide mental stimulation to help open pathways and introduce different ways to think about things and simply broaden your child’s experiences and knowledge.
We, the Camping Feed Staff, have put together our favorite outdoor activities for kids, and we hope you and your kids enjoy them all.
1. Go Camping
Camping is a great way to learn about the outdoors, learn to build a fire, set up a tent, cook outside, and a range of other activities depending on where you’re camping.
You can go to a national park, a local forest, or a beach area, or you can set up a campground in your backyard as a practice run to learn how to set up everything needed for a camping trip.
It may also be a fun experience for your child and friends to sleep outside for the night, which can also help build confidence.
2. Go For A Hike
Hiking is a great activity that gets you into nature and introduces you to the great outdoors; you may have the opportunity to spy on wildlife, see fantastic views, or simply get some exercise as you’re hiking along a trail.
It’s also a good opportunity to teach your kids about respecting wildlife, how to navigate or read trail signs or maps, and what to do if you get lost.
If a full hike isn’t a possibility, then simply go for a walk somewhere new in nature; it could be to a local park or even along a local beach. Finding new and exciting places to walk or hike is a great activity that you and your kid can share, but age may factor in how far you can go.
3. Go Bike Riding
Bike riding is a great equalizer and family activity that everyone can be part of; it’s a great chance to get some exercise and learn how to ride your bike safely in different environments, which will be crucial as your child gets older.
4. Pick Fresh Produce
There are many places where you can pick fresh produce, whether you go berry picking in the fields, visit farmers’ markets, or even go into the forest for mushroom picking. It provides an opportunity to get out and also learn how to pick the best food.
It’ll be especially educational if you go mushroom picking as part of a hike in the forest; otherwise, berry picking in fields is a fun activity and can often be cheaper than most other places. Do not pick mushrooms or berries that you don’t know and always ask for a specialist opinion.
5. Plant Your Own Garden
Gardening is often a lost skill, but it can be a fun experience and a great learning opportunity on how to care for and grow vegetables, flowers, or anything that interests your child. Even if you’re living in a larger city with no backyard or room, you can set up tower gardens or window boxes for a smaller gardening project.
6. Go Swimming
Learning how to swim is often a great skill to have, it keeps your child safe, is a good activity to stay fit, and it provides a lot of fun and opportunities to go to beaches, lakes, and rivers during the summer.
7. Build A Sandcastle
Go to a local beach or set up a sand pit at home and sand building sandcastles or sand sculptures, it’s a fun activity, and you can incorporate more complex designs to get your child thinking about the architecture of the sandcastle which is a great learning experience.
8. Go Stargazing
A fun nighttime activity instead of watching TV is to head out into the backyard or to a local park to look up at the stars. You can use your naked eye to pick out constellations, get a pair of binoculars, or even invest in a telescope.
Learning about the cosmos can be a fantastic learning experience for both you and your child and is a great time to bond over learning something together.
9. Go Fishing
Learning how to fish is a wonderful skill to have; not only can it be fun, but it’s a great way to save money by catching your own food. You can incorporate this into other activities like gardening and foraging to show your kid that not everything comes from the store.
10. Try Geocaching
Geocaching is a real learning experience for kids and adults; you need to follow clues and find hidden boxes or locations while walking around your city. It provides an excellent problem-solving skillset and a good amount of exercise from all the walking.
11. Create A Scavenger Hunt
Similar to geocaching, it allows you to control the area where you’re hiding items and makes it more fun for the kids with better prizes. It is also less about problem-solving with clues and more about searching and thinking like the scavenger hunt builder.
A scavenger hunt is fun, but it helps build crucial searching and thinking skills that many kids today lack.
12. Try Birdwatching
Birdwatching is a great way to get outside for some activity but also a learning experience by finding and determining what birds you’ve found based on their appearance.
It can become an ongoing fun activity as you try to find and identify all the local birds listed as living in your area.
13. Collect Some Natural Items To Make Art
Head into the forest for a walk, your local park, a beach, or even your backyard to find all kinds of natural items to make some art. This could include leaves, sticks, rocks, pinecones, and anything else that you may find.
As you’re going to be finding all kinds of different things, it’s a great way to build your child’s mind and see what they can create each time.
14. Build An Obstacle Course
Using your backyard build an obstacle course out of anything you have at hand, buckets, brooms, swings off a tree, or even use chalk on concrete pavers to set a path that must be followed.
It’s a great way to have fun building and then learn some agility and spatial awareness skills that will be helpful in sports and simply getting around in the world as your child grows.
It’s also great to improve imagination and thinking skills to see how you can build the obstacle course and what can be used, so don’t take over the project for your child; just help and offer suggestions.
15. Visit A Petting Zoo
Visit a petting zoo so that your child can be introduced to a range of animals that they may not get to see in their day-to-day lives. It’s a great way to introduce them to animals, feed them, care for them, and simply learn how to coexist with them without being afraid.
16. Learn To Climb
Learning to climb is a fantastic skill to have; it improves overall strength and thinking ability, and it’s simply fun and much easier to do as a kid. Consider climbing trees in your backyard or local park, or try to find a local climbing gym or club that can help teach your kid to really climb.
17. Fly Kites
Flying kites is just a fun activity to do on a windy day, it doesn’t require a lot of money to buy a simple kite, and then you can visit a park or local beach to launch your kite for some fun together.
18. Find 5 Different Species Of Tree
Learn about the trees in your local environment, go for a walk in the local park or find a local state forest and have your kid find and identify five different species of tree. It’s a fun activity that both of you can learn from, and it’s a great bonding experience together.
19. Build An Outdoor Fort
Building a fort is a fun activity that your kid can do with their friends or even with you; find a good area that they can set up and then have them go hunting for materials to build a great fort.
It’s a good way to learn and even teach the basics of building and what’s required for basic shelter, which can also be helpful as they grow up and go hiking or exploring in the wilderness.
There are many adults that don’t have this skill, and people get lost in the backcountry far too often without the required skills to survive.
20. Go Rockhounding
Rockhounding is amateur geology; take the opportunity to let your kid explore areas to find rocks, petrified wood, fossils, and many other things. Once found, they can try to identify exactly what it is.
It’s a fantastic learning experience and lets your kid get dirty and explore areas thoroughly. Of course, not all kids will enjoy this type of activity but give it a chance and see how they do and if they enjoy it.
