Outdoor Spring Nature Activities for Kids to do in the Garden
Spring is the best time to get outside! We’ve been looking for signs of spring and fun Spring Nature activities we can do outdoors in the garden. As we turn a corner from Winter to Spring, it’s fun to look out for things to occupy the kids in the garden and activities for them to make and create to help celebrate the arrival of Spring! I’ve listed our favourite spring outdoor activities that can be done in your garden, local park, backyard or even on your doorstep! To help you get your daily dose of nature – we’ve created ‘Doorstep Nature’ – 30 days of outdoor activities and nature craft ideas for kids to do in gardens or nature crafts to do inside. For full details of all these kid’s nature activities head to our Facebook group Wildhood Adventures and we’ll be sharing our favourites over on Instagram.
Outdoor Spring Nature Activities for Kids to do in the Garden
Doorstep Nature – Kids Nature Outdoor Activities for the Garden
Here’s some fun Spring activity suggestions to help kids learn to love spending time outdoors. And if you’d like some more fun kid’s ideas for Spring – check out our 100+ Nature Activities for Kids and Woodland Craft Activities.
Outdoor Spring Activities for Kids to do in the garden
Hapa Zome
Here’s a creative way to play with flowers – here’s a whole post on Happazome including a video of how we did it. Hapa Zome is simply the Japanese art of pummeling flowers and plants but it’s a lot of fun for kids and produces some pretty pieces that can be displayed. Kids of all ages will love this Spring activity and you can make a variety of things from simple display items to bags or fancy napkins!
Sunflower Competition
Plant some sunflower seeds and have a sunflower growing competition! This is a great activity for younger kids and even older ones like it too!
Flower Key Rings
If you’re venturing out on a walk or some outdoor play and collect some beautiful things or nature items like some leaves or flowers, this Spring Flower Keyring is a lovely thing to make to display your findings. If you’d like more ideas of what to do with kids on a nature walk, you can find some more ideas in this Woodland Walks for Kids post. There’s lots of different activities in this article to help kids get outside.
Fun Kids’ activities for Spring
Clay Flower Craft
Here’s a great nature spring art activity for kids. Collect some beautiful flowers or leaves on a spring walk and press them in a flower press or under a heavy set of books. Then press them gently into clay and varnish once the clay is dry! This is the best way to display spring flowers! We have lots more flower crafts and activities here.
Spring Crafts for Kids
Make a Boat and sail it down a River
I think paddling in creeks or rivers is the ultimate fun activity for kids! This is one of our kids favourite outside activities.Try having a boat building competition out of only the natural things you find near the river and have races sailing them! Here’s our post on a Nature mini raft building.
Play with Mud Pies in a Mud Kitchen
Kids love playing with mud pies and a mud kitchen. Mud is fun! Playing with mud encourages creativity and is a natural activity for kids. It’s simple to get started with mud pies – you can just use any pots, pans or plates and kids can decorate their mud and decorate with whatever they can find in the garden such as flowers, leaves, sticks and grass. If you’d like more ideas for kids mud kitchen play see our popular post on ideas for mud kitchen play for kids and mud kitchen recipe ideas for kids too!
Make Nature Crowns
Try some of these gorgeous nature crowns here!
Draw with chalk on the pavement
Young children and older kids will enjoy this – it works well if you have good weather but also is fun to do in the rain and watch the vibrant colours mix together! Check out this article for more Rainy Day Outdoor Activity Ideas.
Love these inspiring street art ideas!
Make an Orange Candle
A great Nature Craft for indoors that makes your house smell lovely! Cut an orange in half and carefully separate the skin from the fruit, making sure the stem stays attached to the peel. Next, pour some olive oil into your citrus “bowl” and on the stem. Let your candle sit for 30 minutes before trying to light the stem. It takes a while to light (be patient) but once lit – it stays alight for ages!
Outdoor spring activities for kids to do in the garden
Make a Flowerpot Wind Chime
This an easy craft that is good for children of all ages – you simply need some flowerpots, paints and beads or bells. The windchimes look lovely in the garden and brighten it up for Spring! Here’s the full post of how to make a Flowerpot Wind chime.
Make an Easter Wreath
It’s lovely to have some things in your house to depict each different season. We made an Easter wreath to celebrate the arrival of Spring. It lasted a long while and was easily updated for Autumn and Winter by replacing with other nature elements we found on Autumn and Winter walks. Here’s our full post with instructions for how to make a Spring Easter Wreath.
Start a Vegetable Garden
Spring is a perfect time to start planting a vegetable or fruit garden with kids, it’s nice for kids to know where their vegetables come from and all kids love digging around in dirt and filling up watering cans – sploshing the water over their little plants. It’s a good idea to start gardening with younger children so they are more used to it as they grow up. You don’t need to have a lot of space to grow a vegetable garden with kids, you could plant strawberries in a hanging basket or container. And potatoes can be grown in a grow bag on a balcony. Lots of vegetables such as Chantenay carrots can be grown in deep containers or window boxes.
There’s so much fun for kids to have in their garden or at a park during Spring. And young kids are always keen to offer a helping hand in the garden at this time of year when there are warmer days. Here’s a post with some lovely, creative ideas for creating a family friendly garden!
Here’s our posts on starting our first vegetable garden to help you get started with yours! It’s a wonderful way to get your kids involved in nature and works with kids of all ages. Consider giving kids their own little garden to take care of – even if it’s a small container garden. Kids will love researching and choosing their seeds and delight in what they’d grown! Here’s how to make some Wooden Spoon Vegetable Planter Labels to label anything you grow.
Read here for more fun outdoor activities for Summertime!
Grow a Pine Cone Tree
Did you know you can grow a tree from a pine cone? Take a pine cone that’s still closed (seeds haven’t opened yet.) Place the pine cones in a freezer for a couple of days in a plastic bag. Give the bag a good shake to loosen the seeds and plant half of it in soil. Water it daily and you should see it start to shoot in a few weeks! For more details – see the instructions here.
Nature Scavenger Hunt
Nature Scavenger Hunts are great to encourage outdoor play! Find some Spring themed nature scavenger hunt and ideas for every season and age group in our post with lots of ideas for outdoor scavenger hunts!
Fun Spring Activities
Try some Leaf Rubbing
All you need is some leaves with strong veins and some crayons to try some leaf rubbing. For more leaf activities – try these fun leaf crafts for kids.
Rock Painting
Celebrate signs of spring by painting rocks as animals, flowers – aren’t these ladybird rocks very cute!
Make Seed Bombs
Wildflower seed bombs are easy to make and fun for kids . They’ll love throwing them! Follow the seed bomb recipe below, but add in your own mix of favourite seeds or wildflowers. Add one part wildflower seeds to 5 parts compost. Mix with water to make a consistency you can roll into balls but don’t add too much water so it doesn’t become mushy. Throw them in the garden, give them a water and watch them bloom.
Learn about the Frog Life Cycle
Frogs are a real sign of Spring, searching for tadpoles is a great activity for kids to do in Spring. Check out this post on how to go pond dipping and see our ideas for nature books to learn about frogs and nature’s life cycle. You might also like to try this Frog Craft for the kids to make!
Photo Scavenger Hunt
This is one of our favourite outdoor activities that is perfect for kids to complete on a walk – it’s like eye spy for kids that are older! Even our teens love this activity! Download your FREE printable photo scavenger hunt here! You can find all our fun nature scavenger hunt ideas here!
Fairy Garden
One of the fun things our kids like to do in the garden is to create a fairy garden or a dinosaur garden! A fairy garden offers an enchanted magical play space or “small world” that kids can use to develop their imagination and create imaginary worlds. All you need is some pots or containers. First fill your containers with compost or soil, allow your kids to choose what to plant and add pebbles, sticks and stones. You can buy fairy accessories like the ones here for your fairy garden or you can make them.
Start a Nature Journal
Making a nature study journal is a fun and easy activity to do with children. Here’s how to start a nature journal with kids…
Nature Adventure Journal for Kids
If you’d like to start Nature Journalling with your kids – I’ve created an easy to use Nature Adventure Journal printable. This Nature journal contains everything you need to have magical outdoor adventures with your little explorers. If you’re looking to get your kids to play outside more – there are lots of easy nature journal activities here to inspire kids to explore nature’s wonderland from cloud watching and scavenger hunts to designing their own garden.
This kid’s nature journal was designed with children ages 5-12 in mind (but my three year old also loves it and it can be used by children of any age!). This is a fun and easy nature workbook with beautiful watercolour drawings encourages kids to look a little closer at nature and gently develop the lifelong habit of nature observation. Buy it here.
Go on a Bug Hunt
Encourage your kids to go and look for bugs in the garden using this post. You could also build a bug house to encourage insects to your garden. Find out how to build a bug house with kids here.
Outdoor Activities for kids to do in the garden on Rainy Days
Even if it’s a rainy Spring day there’s lots of fun to be had in the garden on a rainy day. Check out our article on the Best Outdoor Activities for Kids to do in the Rain.
Rain Painting
Rain Painting is easy to do – try a variety of different papers and paints – paint in blobs on your paper and leave the rain to make it all swirly and pretty. For Rain Painting full instructions – see this post……
Make a Rain Gauge
This is a great way to teach kids Science and Maths skills all in one, for a really simple easy way to make a rain gauge using recycled materials, there’s full instructions here.
Fly a Kite
Spring weather is unpredictable which means you’re likely to have a rain shower or two or a windy day. Flying a Kite is a great idea for kids to do in the great outdoors on a windy day.
Go Rockpooling
Rockpooling can be done in any weather! It’s a great spring time activity as the beaches will tend to be quieter and there’s more chance of spying some creatures out of the sun. See our full guide on rockpooling for kids here.
Need more ideas for outdoor kids activities?
Try a local hiking trail and try our fun ideas for activities and games for kids to make long walk fun for kids. Or try these outdoor games for kids, they’ll have a great time!
If you’ve found these fun outdoor activities useful – you’ll LOVE our ultimate list of outdoor activities for kids. We also have some Spring Sensory Play ideas which are great for preschoolers and toddlers.
Check out these Awesome Autumn Outdoor Activities for Kids
