Nature Games

Children love games! Here are a few ways to get children up and moving while learning about nature and wildlife. Remember that many classic children's games can also be adapted into nature-based games! 

Stepping Stones

Is your class studying water, or stream and pond life? Take it outside for some added fun and create a "creek" or "stream" for students to jump across. Students can creat fish and other stream animals to have in the water. Cumulate the activity with a trip to a local stream!

What you need:

*old t-shirts, hand towels or dish towels (your stones)

How you play:

Each player gets two “stones”. At “Go!” each player races to the finish line by jumping from stone to stone across the “creek”. Players jump from stone to stone by standing on one stone while gently tossing the other stone a jumpable distance away, jumping to that stone, reaching back to the other stone to retrieve it. Players continue across the creek until someone crosses the finish line. If a player falls off a stone they must return to the starting point.

Nature Scavenger Hunts

What you need:

*list of nature objects for children to collect and/or see

*baggies to collect objects

*pens/pencils to cross items off of list

Set aside a designated area for the scavenger hunt. Design your list based on what you know will be found in the area. Create a list using pictures or drawing of the objects children are to collect or observe (include the written word as well). Divide the children into groups of two or three. Allow children to explore and find the objects on their list. Ideas for scavenger lists are leaves, rocks, sticks, colors, insects etc...

Fox and Rabbit Tag

This blindfolded game of tag is as entertaining for the onlookers as it is for the hunter and its "prey". A new twist on the classic!

What You Need

• 2 blindfolds
• Small grassy area

Instructions

1. Get everyone into a circle, with players about an arm's length away from one another. Because this game relies on one player hearing another's movements, it is best played on grass, and everyone should keep very quiet during each round. Pick one player to be the fox and another to be the rabbit. Bring them both to the center of the circle and blindfold them. If young children do not wish to be blindfolded, they can just close their eyes.
2. Explain that the fox is hunting at night and is listening for his prey, the rabbit. The rabbit, naturally, is trying to avoid the fox. The other players are trees that will guide the rabbit or fox gently back into the circle when either wanders off the playing area. Turn the rabbit and fox around several times to slightly disorient them, then let the hunt begin. Allow a little time for this game every player will want a turn at being the fox and rabbit.

Spider Webs

Kids love the thrill of making like a spider in an activity that's part game, part art, and part obstacle course, says education professor Rhonda Clements of Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York. This game would go perfect with Growing Up WILD's "Spider Web Wonders"!

What you need:

*At least 6 skeins of yarn (or balls of string)

*a stand of trees (you can also use a play structure or 12 or more 2- to 3-foot-long stakes pounded into the ground)

*scissors

*a garbage bag

How It's Done:

Tie one end of the yarn to a tree. Let players take turns passing the skein, crisscrossing the "web" every which way around the tree trunks. Secure the end of each skein by tying it to a tree. At a Baltimore play day organized by several of her students, recalls Clements, a parent was unwittingly built into the web. "He was standing very close to a stake, and a child tossed the ball of yarn around his leg. The kids thought that was great, because they anchored this dad to the ground." After all the yarn is used, let the kids climb through their creation. To clean up, pass out scissors and cut the web to pieces. Collect the scraps in a garbage bag for string games, finger knitting, or art projects

Stuck in the Mud

Don't get stuck indoors; go outside and play an exciting game of Stuck in the Mud. What lives in the "mud"? When you are done with this exciting game get down and dirty and explore soil!

What You Need

• Nothing

Instructions

1. Choose someone to be It. His name is Mud.
2. Each player grabs hold of one of Ms. or Mr. Mud's fingers, and all chant, "What happened to you, Ms. Mud, while spring flowers, they did bud?!"
3. Then, at an unpredictable speed — the point is to trick the players — Ms. Mud chants back, "I slipped into the crud! I got stuck in the ? mud!"
4. At the sound of the word "mud," all the players let go of Ms. Mud's fingers and scatter away while she gives chase.
5. If Ms. Mud tags a player, that player is "stuck in the mud" (that is, frozen).
6. The sole way to get unstuck is for an untagged player to crawl under the stuck player's legs. Players are safe only while they are in those crawling-under moments.
7. You play until everyone is caught . Then name another Mud and begin again.

Tips:

To avoid exhausting Mr. or Ms. Mud, an adult could set a time limit for each round.