# Nature Play: Backyard Learning Adventures
> A collection of backyard nature activities for fall and late summer. Kids paint pine cones, build a milk-carton birdhouse, watch insects and mushrooms, and turn leaves, petals and maple seeds into crafts.
- URL: https://www.funlittles.com/natureplay/
- Ages: 2–6 yrs · Difficulty: easy · Mess: medium
- Time: prep none, activity varies
- Works for: one-on-one, small group, whole class
- Skills: nature-exploration, science, life-cycles, fine-motor, art, pretend-play

## Safety
- Wild mushrooms are not safe to eat. Look, don't taste, and wash hands after any outdoor exploring.
- Supervise outdoor nature play at all times.
- Small natural items such as seeds, petals and pine cone pieces can be choking hazards for young children who still mouth things.

## Ideas
- **Painting on Pine Cones**: When summer brought an abundance of pine cones, we painted on them and crafted with them.
- **Oobleck Fountain**: Pour oobleck over pine cones to create a colorful, drippy oobleck fountain.
- **Milk Carton Birdhouse**: We watched birds migrate and welcomed our feathered friends to a simple milk-carton birdhouse.
- **Backyard Insect Watch**: Watch tiny creatures in the backyard and learn little facts: where they live, what they eat and what happens to them in winter.
- **Egg Carton Caterpillar**: Watch butterflies, learn about their life cycle, then make a caterpillar from an egg carton.
- **What If I Were an Ant?**: Watching insects inspired a role play: dress up and pretend to be an ant.
- **Mushroom Mania**: After heavy rains, explore the mushrooms that pop up. We found different kinds and a fairy ring around our tree. They are not safe to eat.
- **Fall Is in the Air**: Notice the colors changing on the leaves and talk about the new season before starting fall crafts.
- **Leaf Book & Fall Table Decoration**: Collect fall leaves to make a leaf book and a fall table decoration.
- **Propeller Seed Bugs**: Turn maple propeller seeds into little bugs: nature crafts from nature.
- **Leaves and Petals as Glitter**: Use dried leaves and flower petals as glitter to create easy preschooler art.

## Tips
- Keep it simple: create curiosity and the need to ask questions, learn from the answers, praise the curious mind and cherish the love of learning.
- Look for the resources around you, like pine cones, leaves, petals and seeds, and channel them into creative and joyful learning experiences.
- After heavy rains, check the yard for mushrooms. Ours all disappeared when the sun came back and the soil dried out!
- Fall crafts were a great way to cherish the season and sharpen those fine motor skills.

## The original post by TurkeyMom (2012)

Nature based fall activities. Does play and learning go hand –in-hand ? I think YES ! Children learn better through play and playful learning. I'm not an early childhood educator of any sort but being a a mom to two girls has taught me ways to make real life scenarios into playful learning experiences. They learn from the world around them and as parents we need to identify the resources around us and channel it into creative and joyful learning experiences. My strategies are pretty simple : create curiosity-the need to ask questions, learn from answers, praise the curious mind and cherish the love of learning! This post will take you through our learning experience on our backyard. Mots of them are fall activities.

### [PINE CONE PLAY](themhttp://funlittles.com/snowy-cones/)

When summer rolled in we had an abundance of pinecones. We played with pine cones by painting on them and crafting with them. [](https://www.funlittles.com/snowy-cones/) [We also played with oobleck and pine cones to create an Oobleck fountain.](https://www.funlittles.com/oobleck-fountain/) [](https://www.funlittles.com/oobleck-fountain/) [We witnessed migration of birds and welcomed our feathered friends to their new – milk carton-bird-house.](https://www.funlittles.com/no-frills-easy-birdhouse/)

[](https://www.funlittles.com/no-frills-easy-birdhouse/) We watched tiny insects in our backyard and learnt more about them. Little facts as to where they live, what they eat and what happens to them in winter?

 We watched butterflies and learnt about their life cycle and made a caterpillar from an egg carton.  [Watching insects gave us an idea. We did a role play– what if I were an ant ! On how we made the ant checkout our post .](https://www.funlittles.com/ant-mobile/) [](https://www.funlittles.com/ant-mobile/) When Hurricane Isaac rolled in , it brought with it a mega science learning opportunity. After heavy rains we woke up to yard full of Mushrooms. Where did these guys come from? So we took our exploration tools to learn more. 

### Facts: we found different kinds of mushrooms

- We learnt they are definitely not safe to eat
- We also found that we have a fairy ring around our tree
- They all disappeared when the sun came back and soil dried out !

We knew fall was in the air when we noticed colors on leaves. We made a few a fall crafts to welcome the season.  Fall crafts were a great way to cherish the season and sharpern those fine motor skills. [We used the leaves and made a Leaf book & a Fall table decoration](https://www.funlittles.com/fall-decor-with-leaves/) [](https://www.funlittles.com/fall-decor-with-leaves/) We enjoyed another fun fall activity using propeller seeds. [Pods from trees around inspired us to create nature crafts from nature. We used seeds from Maple – propeller seeds and transformed them into little bugs.](https://www.funlittles.com/propeller-seeds-bugs/)

[](https://www.funlittles.com/propeller-seeds-bugs/) [Finally we used up dried leaves and flower petals to create art.](https://www.funlittles.com/fall-art-use-leaves-as-glitter/) [](https://www.funlittles.com/fall-art-use-leaves-as-glitter/) If given the opportunity and encouragement, I have seen that children are natural at everything. They are artists, scientists, authors and magicians and more. Hope you are all learning from your backyard adventures as well!

**Thanks for reading**

**Please take a moment to comment** We encourage you to stick around and take a look at [**couple of**](https://www.funlittles.com/paint-with-spaghetti-brooms/) our [**popular posts.**](https://www.funlittles.com/animal-resist-painting/)

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