We’re heading outdoors for Nature Explorer Week of Camp Fun! Join us for some backyard exploration to collect leaves and flowers to make our own Pressed Foliage Flower Pots and Botanical Clay Necklaces. We’ll observe how plants grow, go on a nature scavenger hunt, and harness the power of the sun to create our own foliage sun prints. Indoors we’ll keep busy with garden sticker art, coloring pages, and creating one-of-a-kind portraits using our backyard finds. Be sure to download the Free Nature Explorers Coloring Page Printable here!
You can never have too many coloring pages to keep campers busy during Camp Fun! Be sure to download our Free Nature Explorers Week Coloring Page Printable and set out with colored pencils, crayons, or markers for a quiet indoor activity.
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This project is such a fun way to juxtapose art with nature. Download our Free Face Printable Sheet here! Then head outside to gather flower, leaves, and other foliage. Get creative using the nature finds to bring your face to life. Make a full head of hair from leaves, create a floral crown, or a pretty necklace. The options are endless! We just laid our foliage on top of the faces and then used markers and colored pencils for additional details. You could also try gluing on the foliage for a more permanent picture.
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Bring out your inner artist with this set of DIY Wood Flowers. Grab some acrylic craft paint and brushes and get creative. These craft trays are the perfect way to keep your painting contained! Once the paint has dried you can add jewels or buttons to your flowers. Hang them indoors or out for a pretty nature-inspired decoration!
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Not only can you fill these flowerpots with flowers, but you can decorate them with flowers too! For this fun craft project we added pressed flowers and leaves to the paper liner of the DIY flower pots and finished with some crayon drawings for an added pop of color. These pots are a fun way to see how nature finds can be preserved by pressing and drying them!
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Explore the unique textures and shapes in nature and use them to create one-of-a-kind necklaces! For this project, collect a variety of leaves and flowers and press them into air-dry clay to create a botanical print. Once dry, embellish with watercolor paints and string onto a necklace with colorful beads.
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These Science Scavenger Hunt Journals are the perfect guide for exploring the backyard. They contain 27 different categories of items to find such as “something that can blow in the wind”, “something that is prickly”, or “something non-living” and have a space for campers to draw a picture and write about each treasure they found. It even contains a small envelope in the back to save some nature finds. On our scavenger hunt we found items including a seed pod, snail shell, and even a snake skin!
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These mini biodegradable pots are the perfect size for starting seeds by a sunny window. Make them extra sweet by gluing on the garden themed foam pieces. Fill with dirt and add a seed by pressing down slightly in the dirt (don’t plant it too deep or it won’t grow). Place the pot where it will get ample sunlight and add water over the sink when the dirt is dry to the touch.
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This tabletop plant viewer is the perfect way to observe what happens below the surface as plants grow. We added soil and two coleus plants to our viewer and within a week their roots had spread all the way down to the bottom of the soil! Set by a sunny window and add a small amount of water every few days and watch the plants grow. These magnifying glasses are a fun addition to the viewer. This Learning Plants Activity Set is also a great way to teach about plant life.
Create a flower and insect filled picture with these easy peel-and-stick flower garden sticker scenes. This a fun indoor activity to keep all ages busy. For an added activity, have campers try to find insects outside that match the creatures in the sticker scenes -ladybugs, bees, butterflies, ants, earthworms, frogs and snails! Other indoor activity ideas include creating colorful art with this Spring Flower Sticker Dot Art.
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Making prints with sun-sensitive paper is a must-do activity during Nature Explorers week. Kids will love seeing the blue paper change to white from the sunlight and quickly create a print of any nature find placed on top of it. Once the papers are dipped in a pan of water, they turn back to blue with a white botanical print. Magic! Choose plants such as ferns with intricate shapes for the best results. You can turn your prints into a pretty nature garland.
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Head to your local library for a selection of fun nature themed books. Here are some of our favorites:
- Nature’s Day: Discover the world of wonder on your doorstep by Kay Maguire
- The Berenstain Bears’ Big Book of Science and Nature by Stan Berenstain
- My First Book About Backyard Nature: Ecology for Kids! by Patricia J. Wynne
- Oh Say Can You Seed?: All About Flowering Plants by Bonnie Worth
- Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
- The Curious Garden by Peter Brown
- Backyard by Donald Silver
