Starting to go a little stir crazy locked up inside with the kids? Just because it’s chilly season, doesn’t mean you have to be holed up indoors.
Ditch the cabin fever. Grab your parka and beanie and get busy with these outdoor activities for kids!
There’s NO reason why kids can’t continue playing outside when the skies are grey and the temperature drops. Rug up with a coat, a hat, scarf, gloves and a pair of wellies and let’s go!
20 cool-weather outdoor activities for kids
1. Splish splash in puddles. When has jumping in puddles ever not been fun? If we’re honest, we adults love this just as much as the kids.
2. Start a garden. Plant some quick-to-grow radishes from seed. They grow so quickly kids will be impressed by their instant green thumbs
3. Camp in your backyard. Kids bloody love a tent, do they not? By pitching a tent in the yard, kids can still enjoy the fun of camping but the creature comforts of home. Plus, if it gets too cold you can snuggle up indoors. Easy peasy.
4. Teddy bear’s picnic. It’s never too cold for bears! Set up a picnic rug on the deck or in the yard and eat a delicious picnic surrounded by stuffed friends.
5. A super fun outdoor activity for the whole family, find a bike riding trail and get huffing and puffing! Smaller kids can take their scooter.
6. Set up a mud pie bakery. Mud pies come thick and fast through the wet months – get ’em while you can!
7. Build a fort or cubby house in the back yard. A cubby house gives shelter from the elements and the kids love having a place to call their own in the yard.
8. Go fishing. You never know what you might catch when you throw a line in. Just be prepared with a plan for when you do catch something!
9. Look for tadpoles in shallow creeks. A favourite from when I was little, we’d forever be on the hunt for tadpoles and loved seeing how they grow into teeny weeny VERY JUMPY frogs.
10. Take a walk in the (mild) rain. Our natural instinct when it starts to rain is to duck for cover and get out of it ASAP. Instead, put your rain gear on, grab the umbrella and go for it, splish, splash and splosh!
11. Plan a nature scavenger hunt for the kids. While out and about exploring, let them look for and collect the following: something round, something fuzzy, something smooth, something that makes noise and something they think is beautiful.
12. Take the kids to the football. There’s nothing quite like a pumped up, excited crowd, a hot meat pie and live action football being played out in front of you. Go Crows!
13. Catch a movie OUTSIDE. Rug up and enjoy a flick in the great outdoors for something different. If you have a projector, you can even set it up in your own back garden.
14. CAREFULLY toast some marshmallows over a fire pit until they’re crispy on the outside and deliciously gooey in the middle. Add in mugs of hot chocolate. BEST. DAY. EVER!
15. Outdoor sandpit play. Let the kids get dirty and muddy in a set of old clothes, shovelling sand around in buckets creating motes and building sand castles. Kids love it and us mamas all know the washing machine isn’t going anywhere!
16. Get out in the garden and while pulling those pesky weeds out, look for some worms. Kids will be fascinated by these wriggly soil workers. Catch and release, GENTLY.
17. Let the kids cover the veranda cement in pretty chalk pictures. It’ll be washed off in the next rain, as opposed to baked on by the summer sun.
18. Go on a walk to find a selection of rocks to take home and make into pet rocks. Young children can paint them as they please and stick some googly eyes on them for good measure. FUN!
19. Explore local parks and gardens. Kids can keep an eagle eye out for how many different coloured and different shaped leaves they can collect.
20. Go to the snow. If you’re lucky enough to live in an area where snow falls (or if you can afford to visit), go and do it! Let the kids build snowmen, throw snowballs and make snow angels before calling it a day and enjoying a nice big ol’ cup of hot chocolate.
Getting outdoors isn’t just about banishing the boredom. Here’s a few more reasons to get the kids outdoors this chilly season.
