It has been a long winter and I am looking forward to getting outside with my kids! As year round homeschoolers we don’t stop learning when the warm spring and summer months come along, instead we take our learning outdoors! Whether our lessons come outside with us or we find fun outdoor homeschool activities and leave the lessons behind, we are busy learning all year long!
Outdoor homeschool activities abound, but learning to recognize them requires homeschool moms to think outside of the typical school box. We have to leave behind the belief that learning only happens in a classroom and with a textbook. The truth is that the best and most influential learning happens outside of the classroom and without a textbook! Kids learn best when they experience things themselves and that doesn’t happen inside with a textbook.
Our Favorite Outdoor Homeschool Activities
- Nature Hikes
There is so much to learn out in nature! From trees and leaves, to plants, bugs, animals and seeds, nature is full of lessons to be learned! Take along a nature journal, a camera and curiosity to learn the most on this outdoor homeschool adventure!
- Write a Story/Play
Take pencils and paper outside with you and work together to write a story or a play together as a family! After the story is written, your kids can take turns creating illustrations for the story and you can have them read it aloud after dinner to you and your spouse. If you write a play together, have fun acting it out together once you are done!
- Physical Education
After spending many winter days indoors, you and your kids have plenty of energy to burn! Set up a baseball diamond, an obstacle course or a running track and have fun playing and learning together!
- Take a Road Trip
Road trips make great math and geography lessons! Have your kids pull out a map, determine the distance, time and finances required for a trip to your destination. Then, have them draw a map including stops along the way and create a schedule of events for your trip!
- Create Art
The spring and summer seasons provide many beautiful scenes for creating beautiful works of art! Gather your art supplies and sit outdoors for the afternoon with your kids and enjoy creating art together. Remember beauty is in the eye of the beholder, don’t expect or require perfection.
- Grow a Garden
Kids of all ages love to grow something of their own! Stop by the store and let your kids pick out a few seed packages of their own and plant a vegetable, fruit or flower of their choice. Teach them how to plant it, care for it and take pictures weekly as y’all watch it grow!
- Read a Book
Grab a new chapter book and lay outside under the shade of a tree (or sit in the sun!) and spend quality time together reading literature aloud to your children. You’ll also be giving them the opportunity to work on their attention spans, building their vocabulary, using their imagination and much more!
Getting outdoors with our kids will give us memories that last a lifetime! When we spend too much time indoors, we are prone to getting lost in the cycle of getting things done that “need” to be done. We need to learn to walk away from the laundry piles, the full sink of dishes and to-do lists waiting on the counter sometimes. The days with our children in our homes are fleeting and one day we’ll be wishing for just one more fun day in the sun with them!
What are your favorite outdoor homeschool activities?
I have decided to homeschool my son. This makes it hard since there aren’t any local groups. I love finding local activities that help the children learn better!
I liked that you explained that nature hikes can be a good activity for homeschool kids. After all, you want to make sure that the kids stay healthy. It might be smart to include things like learning about plants on the hikes as well.