The Artful Parent

33 Nature Art, Crafts & Play Ideas for Kids

With warm weather here and summer vacation around the corner, I thought I'd post a round up of nature arts and crafts (and some that are simply play). Here are 33 artful ideas for celebrating and exploring nature with kids that are especially good for summertime. I had fun going through my archives to come up with this list to share with you. And it was a great reminder for me of ideas to try again soon, too!

P.S. Click on the thumbnails below to go to the full posts.

Flower Stained Glass

We brought a bit of the garden inside a few days ago, making another flower stained glass window—this time for the kitchen door. As before we used flower petals and contact paper. Super easy! And flowery beautiful, of course.

Sometimes we like our bouquets two dimensional.

I also like how it provides a level of privacy yet lets in more light than a curtain to our otherwise windowless kitchen.

I had this set up as a simple after school project to do with Maia and Daphne.

Making Garden Wish Flags

We made a new set of garden wish flags this past week, as part of our plan to increase the magic of our gardening space, and hung them in the backyard. These flags carry our wishes and hopes for the garden and for the gardening season. Let's hope they do the trick!

We first made garden wish flags a couple years ago (and blogged about them here) and absolutely loved them all season long. However I didn't hold on to them, figuring that they were best made fresh each year. We made a different kind last year, using the glue batik method. They were pretty awesome, but sadly we used the wrong kind of paint and they never made it out to the garden.

This year we went back to the good old fabric crayons for our wish flags.

Bubble Machine Magic and A Garden Update

I came home with a bubble machine over the weekend. This is something I've thought about buying off and on for over two years now.

I'd tell myself, "How totally awesome and magical it would be to have bubbles wafting around us while we're hanging out outside. The kids would love it. Heck, I would love it."

And then I'd second guess myself by saying, "What?! The kids can't make their own bubbles? Why would I buy something to take away the pleasure of making their own bubbles?"

Basically I went back and forth along these lines for the last two years. And finally told myself, enough already, and just bought the darn bubble machine.

Guest Post: The Great Ice Sculpture Scavenger Hunt

I am excited to share a series of guest posts with you by other Artful Parents and teachers while I step back from the blog a bit this month! I hope you enjoy the new perspectives, different ideas, and fresh energy that each brings to this space. And I encourage you to leave a comment after the post to continue the discussion, add your own viewpoint, or simply say thanks!

Guest Post by Gabriela Klimes

We live in Winnipeg, Canada. Winters are cold in these parts. Really cold. So it is admittedly quite an effort to get my preschooler and toddler outside this time of year. But I think it's important and so I try to find fun ways to get fresh air, sunshine, and exercise outdoors, even in the dead of winter. This led me to plan an outdoor, snowy scavenger hunt for my two girls.

(Full disclosure: This sort of play is almost always followed by steaming homemade hot cocoa.)

A Fall Leaf Drawing Game for Kids

A couple of days ago, we combined a couple of our family's favorite drawing activities—leaf drawing and Simon Says drawing—to create these fun fall artworks.

Autumn Leaf Print Cookies

You know how much I like printing with leaves, right?* Well, I've had this idea for making leaf prints on cookies for a while now and finally gave it a try (with Maia printing away beside me and Daphne trying to eat all the cookie dough).

Fall Leaf Mandala for the Wall

Look what we've been doing with our pretty doodled leaves! Arranging (and rearranging) them into leafy mandalas and other designs on our living room wall. I'll share a few photos, then I'm going to call it a night and go finish reading The Hunger Games!

Leaf Drawing and Doodling with Metallic Sharpies

We've been doodling and drawing on our beautiful fall leaves. In fact, we loved our Thanksgiving leaf garland so much last year that we are in the process of making another one. Although this time we somehow moved away from writing down all that we are thankful for and mostly just enjoyed the leaves as canvases for art.

Painting with pine branches: process-oriented art in action

As process-oriented art goes, painting with pine boughs and other evergreen branches is up there with fingerpainting and squeezing playdough. It's all about the process, all about the sensory experience (prickly needles, fresh pine smell), and all about exploring what it's like to paint with this novel tool and how it can transfer paint to paper—whether printing, painting, or splattering.

This whole pine branch painting session started because of a package that arrived in the mail for Maia and Daphne last week.