3 Exciting Outdoor Activities to Keep Kids Active and Happy

I like to get my son, A, outside because it allows him to spend time in nature and away from screens. One way that I do this is by finding a fun activity for us to do. I feel like this is a much better and effective way of learning than playing computer games or watching television. Plus, it gets some of his energy out and he always gets some excitement by playing outside and exploring what's around. Below are some fun outside activities for kids.

Frozen Suncatchers

We made a suncatcher using a tofu container. I let A pick some sticks, grapes, and leaves from around the yard and put them in the tofu container. When he was done, I filled it with water and we put it in the freezer. I had planned on having my husband, C, drill a hole through the ice so we could put some string through it and hang it in the tree but C informed me we didn't have the attachment for the power drill to do that. Instead, a few days later, A and I placed it up in the tree, sitting on a branch.

Build a Fort

We started out our fort by using all the bricks in the backyard to form some walls. A dug around on the inside ground with a small shovel and rake to feel like he was doing something since the bricks were to heavy for him. He thought it was really fun to be building a little fort his size. We ran out of bricks so I picked up a couple of logs to finish putting up the walls, but when I picked up the second log, there was a bird skull attached to it which freaked me out so we never got any further than that. It was still fun though. We often see little forts built out of sticks at the park near our house so it was fun to do something similar together.

Tracking

We get a lot of cats and birds in our yard, so while we were outside building our fort we paid attention to all the signs of animal life. For example, we were able to find some cat and bird feces, a dead bird that was probably caught by a cat, and the skull of a dead bird that was probably caught by a cat. A even found some markings in the dirt that he was sure were hoof prints from Santa's reindeer, so it even got his imagination going.