April 5 // Imaginative Outdoor Play Ideas (Bird's Nest, Village, Taco Shop, and More!)

The best ideas are the ones that kids make up on their own!

Apr 05, 2022

This month we’re challenging you to spend more time outside, for the sake of your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health! Today we’ll talk about some things your kids and their friends can do outside while you sit back and relax.

Let Them Figure It Out

We bought so many books and scoured so many articles to find ideas of what to do outside with kids. But you know what the best ideas were? The ones that our kids just made up on their own.

Interesting recent study: research has shown that it can take kids an average of 45 minutes before they figure out what they’re going to play. (Cogorno, 2021)

If you build up the courage to spend a chunk of time outside, and you get there and your kids look around bored and confused, let them. You can say something like, “We are going to stay for at least 90 minutes to get some exercise and enjoy nature. I believe in you; I know you’ll be able to come up with some fun things to play.”

If you can get multiple ages involved in playing together, even better!

Here are some ideas our kids have come up with:

Bird’s Nest

Simply gather sticks and arrange them into a huge nest. Make flooring out of pine needles, leaves, or moss. Then the kids can go inside and act like little birds. It also works as an effective playpen for toddlers.

Village

Each person has a home and a shop, and the children exchange acorns (ours call them “Dollar Bucks”) for goods and services. Time moves quickly in the village, so every few minutes they all go to sleep for the day and then wake up again. They also have town hall meetings and elect leadership.

Inventory

It’s fun for kids to just find things and arrange them. It’s incredible that colors from every part of the rainbow are able to be found in nature.

Squishing berries and playing with natural dyes is fun, too. Are some plants toxic? Yes! Be aware of them (especially if you live in Australia.) But even if your kids do grab a poison ivy leaf, they’ll probably be okay. Worst-case scenario is usually not really that bad. (Again, unless you’re talking about the Gympie-Gympie plant.)

Measuring Cups and Water

Don’t underestimate how much fun a toddler can have with a tub of water and Dollar Tree measuring cups. Sprinkling in some water beads helps, too. (And you might be surprised by how much fun older kids have with this activity, too, kind of as a guilty pleasure.)

Taco/Sushi Shop

It’s so satisfying to roll up ingredients onto large leaves. Kids can come up with the cutest names for their dishes, too, like “The Hawaii Special.”

Tiny Village

If you bring dolls and stuffed animals out, it’s even easier to make a village because you just have to make everything really small.

Twig Messages

Telling kids to write out words with twigs can keep them busy for awhile.

Drawing in wet sand is fun, too! (Shoutout to our Florida friends!)

Act of Thoughtfulness: Make Cards Outside

Yesterday we talked about trying to make a habit of doing normal indoors-things outside. Here’s a good way to start: write cards! Make an encouraging card for someone in the inspiration of natural light and no fear of messes.

Hopefully some of those ideas are a launching pad for you and your kids! You can simply suggest “how about you make a village?” and see where they take it.

And remember, though it can take some effort to go outside instead of putting on a movie, you get to sit around and eat fake tacos while your kids don’t mess up your house. It’s a pretty great deal.

Hopefully some of these ideas helped you! I’d love to hear about what your kids like to play outside!