Outdoor Imagination Games

Finally, the weather appears to be getting a little nicer. After winter time, children just seem to relish in the sunshine and fresh air of the outdoors. Spring time is a great time to encourage your children to spend more time outdoors. Of course, you can do the obvious, bike rides, spring plantings, mud pies and puddles. Here are five outdoor imagination games that may spark some interest with children.

1. Outdoor Tea Party: Search the park or yard for smooth rocks to be the the plates. Find some circular rocks to be the tea cups. How about a fat stick for the tea pot. Serve up some acorn snacks as pretend food. Lay out a blanket and get the nature tea party started.

2. Nature Restaurant: Set up a pretend restaurant serving up mud pies, pine cones stew, rock soup, grass delight and more. Use your beach buckets for pots. Sticks can stir up all the special recipes.

3. Wilderness Family: Pretend that you live in the woods year round. Create a small fort outdoors in the woods or just drape a sheet on in between some bushes. Search for rocks, pine cones and grass to be your pretend food. Collect sticks to make a pretend fire to cook over and keep warm by. Make a bed of leaves to sleep on. Find a pine branch to be your broom. Pretend to go hunting for animals. Remember to stay in the fort during "storms" or if "dangerous animals" are lurking about.

4. Parade: Create instruments using items from nature - bang two rocks together, hit sticks together and grass blade whistles (personally never could do that but I know kids who can). March around the yard playing your homemade instruments.

5. Circus: Pretend to put on a circus show outdoors. Put jump ropes on the ground as tight ropes. Hang hula hoops from the trees to throw old stuffed animals through for the animal acts. Practice bike riding tricks i.e. ride with one hand, ride only pedaling with one foot, etc. Hula hoop or jump rope for long periods of time.

Children will not only benefit from the outdoor time but imagination fuels creativity and learning.


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