Wondering what to do with kids outside at home? It’s simpler than you may think. If you are sick of screen time overload in your household, you are not alone. One of the easiest ways to reduce time with technology is to increase time outdoors. Here are ten fun things to do outside at home.
Eat Meals Outside
Whether it’s cereal on the porch, a sandwich beneath a tree, dinner at the picnic table, or snacks on a park bench, eating outdoors is a simple way to get your family more comfortable in nature and up everyone’s natural vitamin D intake.
Get A Pet
Whether you are a rural family with lots of space for a chicken coop or a city family with sidewalks to jog with a dog, a loveable pet is excellent motivation to get outside every day. Instead of investing in expensive smartphones and video game systems that keep your family isolated from one another in separate rooms indoors, invest in an animal that could use some love and care. Make a new habit of unplugging from the virtual world and getting outside with your pets.
Save Messy Crafts For The Backyard
Entice your children to get out in the sun with you by saving coveted activities for the outdoors. Here are some ideas:
- Anything involving glitter or glue (you’re welcome)
- Mold with clay or playdough
- Paint pottery
- Set up easels and do watercolor painting
- Make slime
Not only will this minimize indoor mess, it will also increase your family’s joy outside.
Grab my free printable Screen Free Family Bingo Challenge below!
Have An All-Day Weekend Yard Sale
Yard sales are a great way to get kids excited about being outside while also reducing clutter. Bonus points if you allow your kids to set up a brownie and lemonade stand!
This past summer, we participated in a community yard sale with friends. Our kids had the time of their lives serving up lemonade and counting the earnings.
Just because we have Facebook marketplace doesn’t mean that in-person community yard sales and lemonade stands have to be a thing of the past. This is the golden stuff of childhood. Gift your kid the experience. They can be involved in every step of the process from gathering their own donations, pricing items, calculating sales, baking brownies, serving guests, and enjoying the proceeds.
Wrap up your yard sale effort with a trip to get ice cream. Be sure to enjoy your cones on a walk through the neighborhood.
Read Outdoors
Read to your kids outdoors often. This is a way to gift your child two of the most essential elements of any whole childhood—time outside and read aloud sessions with a loving caregiver.
Get extra time outside with your kids by reading separately too. Read your own book on a park bench while the kids swing from the monkey bars nearby. Give your preschooler a stack of beautiful picture books to flip through and a snack beneath the shade of a tree. Grab a novel you know your big kid will be excited about and invite them to read quietly beside you outside for ten to fifteen minutes.
Keep it light and fun. Little steps add up over time.
Exercise With Your Family
We all need daily physical movement in order to maintain our health, but we get to choose whether our exercise takes place in front of a screen or a stream.
Instead of turning on an exercise video, try some of these ideas to get your family’s heart pumping:
- Take your child on a walk
- Jump on the trampoline with them
- Ride bikes together
- Set up an obstacle course in you backyard
- Jump rope
Take School Outside
During school time, instead of setting you child up with an electronic device where they can click around from app to app and get distracted, make as much learning as possible old school. Pencil, paper, and books.
If your child attends traditional school, take them outdoors to do their homework in the evenings. Prioritize printing out your child’s work if it was sent to them digitally and wherever possible, request paper assignments from your child’s teacher.
If you are a homeschooling family, take some of your learning outside on fair weather days. Science is a great subject to teach at a local park or even in your own backyard, but almost any curriculum book can be read aloud outdoors.
Time in nature reduces stress and promotes relaxation. With the absence of digital distractions, kids are more likely to focus on their studies outside. On the flip side, they will also be highly motivate to finish up their work efficiently so that they can run off and play with all that nature has to offer.
Do Yard Work Together
Does it seem easier to let your child play video games while you tidy up the yard yourself? In the short term it may be, but easy doesn’t teach endurance and life skills that the kids of this generation desperately need.
Skip the screen time and include your child in age appropriate yard work activities such as…
- Picking up toys from the yard
- Lining up bikes and scooters
- Shoveling pet waste
- Raking leaves
- Shoveling snow
- Mowing the lawn
- Picking weeds
- Planting a garden
- Watering crops
Invite Your Neighbors Over
Hospitality is so much easier outside. You don’t have to worry about cleaning your home or setting up activities to keep kids busy. Teach your children the art of getting to know people outdoors where the pressure is low and there’s plenty to do. We’ve had neighborhood kids join our own children on the trampoline several times. We’ve also hosted simple backyard cookouts and front yard fire pits with just dessert and apple cider. Inviting neighbors over to fellowship in your yard is a great way to get outside with your kids more often.
Take Fun Day Trips Outdoors
You can keep it as simple as your local duck pond or as elaborate as a trip to the nearest amusement park. But when you have time to spend with your children during the evenings and weekends, aim to keep your activities outside. Here are some family favorites…
- Donuts for breakfast at the playgrounds
- A simple nature walk or hike at nearby parks
- Outdoor mini golf
- Waterparks in the summer
- Sledding down big hills in the winter
- Fruit picking at local farms
Bonus: Play Sports With Your Kids
You don’t have to be athletically inclined to pass hours with your kids outdoors. Believe me, I know. I don’t have an athletic bone in my body but I enjoy backyard sports with my kids just for the bonding experience and extra time in nature.
Set up a volleyball net and practice serving a blown up beach ball with your little ones. Grab an inexpensive football and play catch. If you’re feeling adventurous and you have a large family or some friends who would like to join, play a game of dodgeball.
What you do doesn’t matter so much as who you do it with. The point of getting outside more with your kids is that you are spending time together, unplugged from screens, and making memories that will last a lifetime.
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