Want your kids to care for our planet and be environmentally friendly? Get them outdoors more often!

The reason being environmentally friendly is so important to me is because I have a close relationship with nature. I am not an indoors girl by any means and NEVER have been. I count myself lucky to be among the last generation that just roamed free during the day, coming home covered in dirt, sticks and bug bites. When people ask me what my favorite childhood toy was, I respond without hesitation: mud.

We don’t care for things that we’re not attached to or have no relationship with. And we’re not informed about the problems facing things we don’t care about. For example, if I told you that pangolins are going extinct, unless you were very familiar with them or have a deep love of animals, you might feel sad, but not necessarily compelled to do anything about it. It feels like a problem very removed from ourselves because we have no relationship with pangolins.

The same is true for the earth. If our children spend most of their waking minutes inside, they will have no relationship with the earth. When they grow up to become adults and hear about environmental problems, it will feel removed from them, like someone else’s problems.

Here are some fabulous ways to get your kids out and playing in nature!

1. Grow a garden
2. Go on nature walks- and let them get dirty!
3. Free Forest Schools
4. Go camping- in a tent!
5. Take them to National Parks
6. Go play at lakes, oceans or rivers
7. Take them hiking
8. Take them for walks and let them interact and observe natural things
9. Schedule outside time each day, whether it’s in the backyard, park, or taking a walk
10. Climb trees together
11. Create art with nature
12. Let them play in mud
13. Play with worms
14. Collect different types of flowers, press them and then learn what they are
15. Go bird watching
16. Skip rocks
17. Raise a butterfly
18. Jump in puddles
19. Go on a walk in the rain
20. Pick berries
21. Collect leaves and sort them into different types
22. Go star gazing
23. Go sit out in nature and listen to the different noises you hear
24. Build rock towers
25. Roll down hills
26. Make clover necklaces or flower crowns
27. Build structures with sticks, rocks, mud, leaves and whatever else you can find
28. Build a sandcastle
29. Bury each other in the sand
30. Play in the snow
31. Have stick sword fights
32. Look at clouds and talk about what shapes they look like
33. Sleep under the stars
34. Go on a picnic
35. Go on a nature scavenger hunt
36. Hunt for bugs
37. Do some leaf rubbings
38. Collect shells
39. Make mud pies
40. Collect acorns or pinecones
41. Collect rocks
42. Go bouldering
43. Smell wildflowers
44. Go to an orchard
45. Visit a farm
46. Make a pile of leaves and jump in them

Let your child feel dirt between their toes. Let them be freckled by the sun. Let their little bodies grow strong from running and climbing trees. These moments will be forever imprinted on them. And then as we try to teach them to be environmentally friendly by not having a million toys, or by loving hand me down’s, they’ll care and understand so much more because they won’t want anything to threaten the thing they love so much.