Outdoor winter nature activities for kids
Outdoor winter nature activities for kids
Are you looking for ways to get your kids outside this Winter? Here’s our list of outdoor winter nature activities for kids coming up! Winter can be a real hibernating time – it’s tempting to want to stay cosied up indoors until the weather warms up a little. Part of the fun of Winter is snuggling up on sofas and under blankets diving into a good book! But as the days lengthen, daylight shortens and everything becomes decidedly crispier, nature provides us with a magical backdrop that’s perfect for exploring. A fresh winter’s walk in nature to blow away the cobwebs, get some fresh air and put an end to cabin fever is a lovely way to savour the winter season. If you’d like to do more exploring this Winter, here’s a list of fun, easy outdoor winter nature activities to help you get outside more this Winter.
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Ideas for exploring Nature in Winter (with or without snow)
Winter Nature Activities for Kids
If your kids are anything like mine, it’s easy to get them out and about in the snow but for those grey days when you need a little more inspiration, here’s some fun winter nature ideas that don’t require any snow and are suitable for the including younger whole family! Let the wild world weave its magic and encourage a real sense of adventure with fun outdoor winter activities! And if it’s a rainy day, you’ll need our rainy day outdoor activities for kids.
A winter scavenger hunt
is an activity that will surely build excitement for your kids. This will help them be aware of their surroundings and fuel their curiosity to discover more about mother nature. To begin, you can make your own nature scavenger list. Have the kids collect different kinds of seeds, flowers, insects, or even rocks. After collecting these, you can have them check what these are made of by using an easy-to-use and 100% wow-factor guaranteed kid’s microscope. The most interesting part of this activity is that they get to enjoy and have fun while learning about the natural world. Check out our Nature Activity Pack for a printable scavenger hunt.
List of Outdoor Winter Activities
Go on a Eggbox Nature Walk
Another perfect winter activity on with or without a magnifying glass on cold days for preschoolers is to grab an eggbox and try to see how many fun and interesting things you can fit in an egg box . Here are 24 fun ideas of more things you can do with nature on a walk in this post
Make a Cast of Animal Footprints
Another easy outdoor nature activity for winter weather is to go on an animal footprint hunt and make a cast of the footprints. Find out how to do it here….
Go on a Muddy Puddle Walk
A must for your Winter Bucket List is to pop on your waterproofs in bad weather (see below for ideas for dressing kids in cold weather) and head out to a woods and have some fun splashing around in muddy puddles! Splashing often results in more time outside so it’s a win win! You can see our post of our Muddy Puddle Adventure here!
Start Geocaching
Geocaching is agreat way to explore outside in the cold winter months and it’s a great outdoor nature activity for winter. It is free, easy, fun, appropriate for all ages, and comes top of the list for family things to do in winter! People across the world set up hidden treasure “caches” and then upload the coordinates so that other people can find them. You can use an app on a smartphone to find them so it’s great way to lure techy kids outside! Find great tips here Our first geocaching experience didn’t quite go to plan but we’re still keen to try more, find out how we got on here!
Things to Make Outdoors in Winter
Outdoor winter nature crafts are a great way to look at what nature has to offer in a new light at this time of year and it gives opportunities for developing problem solving skills and working together. Creating something that might take a long time or be tricky for kids like winter nature activities is a great way for helping them value their own creativity and be proud of what they can make with their own hands.
Natural Mobiles
Take two sticks and tie them together in a cross. Hang several long bits of string down from the ends of the stick cross and add pine cones, berries, leaves or shells/ pebbles to make a beautiful mobile. Or alternatively, use air drying clay to make a nature mobile by using natural elements and reading this post here. If you find some fun winter flowers or leaves – you could preserve them by making this cute nature keyring!
Best outdoor winter activities for kids
Make Frozen Bubbles
This is a really beautiful activity for holiday season. Try making frozen bubbles to blow away the winter blues in the colder months , find out how here. I’m really hoping it gets cold enough here to try this and be able to take beautiful photographs! Temperatures need to be below freezing on It’s a great activity for winter days for this to work and it’s best to try in the evening when the sun has mostly gone down so they completely freeze without the sun!
Make a Bird’s Nest
See a lovely idea for making a Bird’s Nest here.
Nature Xylophones
If you have some glass jars spare, you can easily make a Natural Xylophone in the woods or your garden during cold temperatures. Find out how to make one here.
Outdoor Winter Activities for Kids
Winter Outdoor Adventures for kids
Nature Clay Faces
If you take some clay with you, you can have lots of fun exploring nature by making clay faces using leaves, twigs, bracken – anything you can find! Alternatively, a messier (and much more fun) version is to find some thick mud and make your own clay.!
Photo: https://theladybirdsadventures.co.uk/</a>
Winter Nature Art for Kids to Make Outdoors
Natural Stained Glass Windows
This activity is great for younger and older kids. If you pour a little bit of cold water into a bucket or large bowl and place some string around the bowl with the ends hanging out. Float coloured leaves and winter petals on the surface of the water. Leave outside overnight until the water freezes and then hang in a tree to enjoy your Natural Stained Glass Window. For an alternative way to make these – try using this Frozen Suncatcher Idea.
Mud Kitchen Ice Muffins
Here is a lovely idea from Meganzeni for making mini ice muffins in a cake tin – perfect for playing mud kitchens with and a fun way to experiment with art for kids of all ages, see her post for more ice art ideas.
Fun Winter Activities for Kids and Families
The wild world is ripe with endless possibilities for play and creativity but often it can be hard to think of activities to do in the winter for kids. The great outdoors offers kid time and space for exploration and to make up their own games which are often a whole lot more fun outside than in! Here’s some great ideas for outdoor winter nature activities in your garden or local park
Set up an Outdoor Potion Lab
This is a good activity for outdoor play! Have a rifle through your kitchen cupboards and use this as a good opportunity to get rid of out of date flour, spices – anything really! This is one of my kids favourite things to do……. get together some washable or old bottles and cups and get mixing with out of date things from the kitchen cupboard. If you have some bicarbonate of soda and vinegar, this can make the potions really explode! Just make sure your kids know not to drink anything they make! Here’s our summer potion adventure but this would be equally as fun in winter with ice to mix too! If played on a patio, it’s easy to hose down afterwards to wash it away.
Make herb tea or a Mud Cake
Another favourite with my kids! You don’t need to have a mud kitchen, just some old tins, pots and pans and some mud and your kids will be away! We have some herbs planted in the garden and my kids like to use these mixed with water to make their own ‘herb tea’! So much fun for younger kids! Here’s our bumper list of Mud Kitchen Ideas for kids.
Soft Toy Escape
This activity is a great outdoor winter activity for toddlers and preschoolers! Put a soft toy (perhaps not a favourite one!) in a tree too high up for your kids to reach. Give your kids a variety of equipment (I suggest: rope, bucket) and ask them to solve the mission of getting the toy back down BUT no-one is allowed to climb the tree! Check out more games to play outside in winter.
Chalk Ideas for Winter Play
Outdoor activities for preschoolers in winter
- Chalk isn’t just for summer! Try taping lots of different coloured chalks to the end of a broom handle for drawing rainbows on the pavement!
- This is a perfect winter activity for toddlers – trace around little kids feet using chalk and then ask them to see how many leaves or twigs they can fit inside their feet!
Draw coloured circles of chalk for little feet to jump in and out of! It will help them learn their different colours! In the Summer, this activity can be done with the kids filling the circles with things of the same colour.
Here are some more Nature Game ideas:
Tips for Helping Kids to Get Outside in Winter
In a perfect world, getting outside would be as easy as grabbing your coat and heading out your back door with your kids running excitedly behind but if you’re kids are a little reluctant – here’s some ideas to make going outside exciting!
- Wrap up Warm
It’s better to wear lots of thin layers including a base layer of a vest of T.Shirt to keep little kids warm when exploring outside in winter. Warm hats are essential because if your head is cold, your body automatically sends blood to your brain to try and warm it up and then you will feel colder. We love these nice warm hats that also look super cute! Woollen gloves get very wet and cold quickly – so it’s better to wear these under some waterproof ski mittens, particularly if you’re playing in the snow or in water. We love these very reasonably priced kid’s ski gloves.
- Use Waterproofs
Even if you’re not playing in the rain or snow, waterproofs are excellent for insulation and keeping you warm. We prefer these waterproof suits for kids because they’re thin for good movement and to run around but you can also layer up the warmer clothes underneath.
- Bring Snacks!
Helps to boost the kids a little if they’re getting a little tired in the cold weather!
- Bring a Flask full of Hot Chocolate.
This is certain to be winner with kids! This is a great way to turn a quick walk into the woods into a real adventure! Find some tree stumps and settle down for a snack and a cup of hot chocolate! The adults might need a flask of coffee though!
- Use Handwarmers
Pop some inexpensive hand warmers in your pocket if it’s really chilly. They are great after playing in the snow and are perfect for warming little fingers if they get cold. It’s also a good idea to keep a change of clothes and a couple of blankets in the car to warm up kids on the way home. We learnt this after our error of forgetting during our recent Canoeing Trip!
And if the weather’s really bad – don’t forget that on the worst of days, there are plenty of ways you can connect with nature inside, too. Here’s some ideas for indoor nature craft ideas that you can make with the things you find on your walk!
If you’d like more ideas of Winter Outdoor Activities for Kids and you’re lucky to have ice or now – you can try this epic list of Fun things to do in Winter with Kids.
If you’d like more some more ideas to help kids get outside, these books are brilliant!
101 Things for Kids to do Outside
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If you’re looking for more nature making, baking and activity ideas – join our 5 day woodland challenge by clicking on the image below! And find more ways to be an outdoor family in the winter here!
For ideas for a puddle jumping, den building childhood – Come join a Facebook Group ‘Wildling Explorers’ with a ton of inspiration for getting outdoors and nature play! and on Instagram at#wildlingexplorers.
If you’d like more ideas of Winter Outdoor Activities for Kids – we’re running a WILD ABOUT WINTER Challenge over in our Facebook Group ‘Wilding Explorers’ running from January 2020. We’ll be sharing 30 Winter activity ideas throughout January. See below for a sneak peek of what to expect and click the image below to join the FB group to get all the ideas!
