7 Outdoor Writing Activities for Kids

When the weather is great outside, its time to get out of your house and enjoy the natural beauty of the great outdoors. Smell the scent of freshly cut grass, hear the birds tweet, feel the warm sun touch your skin and feel inspired by nature. To help you get out more at any time of the year, take a look at our 7 outdoor writing activities for kids. These activities will help your child to enjoy nature and help them improve their writing skills. These are the perfect activities for whether you are going camping or just for a simple stroll down your local park.

7 Outdoor writing Activities

Get out your notebook or clipboard and head on outside with these outdoor writing activities:

1. Create your own nature ABC book

Either use a notebook or fold several pieces of A4 paper in half, so you get 26 pages, plus a cover and back page. Then begin your adventure outside by hunting for things that begin with each letter of the alphabet. Write the letter on 1 page and draw a quick illustration of the object on the same page. You can even include a description of each item.

2. Use nature to make letters

This one is really creative. Explore your outdoor surroundings for any natural items, such as leaves, twigs, and flowers. And use these to make the different letters of the alphabet. You can even use an A3 sheet of paper and use natural elements to write your own name.

3. Keep a nature journal

A nature journal is one of the educational outdoor writing activities for your child to take part in. Here are some tips for keeping a nature journal:

• Start by adding the date and time at the top of the page
• Write down the weather conditions outside
• Draw a quick picture or take a photo to include in your journal entry
• Use all your five senses to describe the setting. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you feel at this moment in time and what kind of taste do you have in your mouth?
• Keep at least one entry a day and try to write something in it every day, so you can compare how each day changed.

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter here for more freebies like this.

4. Create your own field guide

A field guide is a book with illustrations which allows you to identify different types of bugs, birds, rocks, plants etc. when you’re on a nature walk. It would be coolest if you could create your own little field guide of bugs or animal sightings in your area. You could even use this fantasy plant name generator if you can’t find any plants.

Again by folding several pieces of A4 paper in half, you could easily create your own little book. We recommend you keep a separate field guide for each type of natural element, such as plants, bugs, rocks and animals. This will keep your guide clean and simple. Not sure where to start? We recommend you start by drawing a picture of the object in the middle of the page and then labelling it based on its physical appearance.  You can even include the date, time, location and weather conditions when you found this object.

5. Flower Pressed Poems or cards

I love this activity and the end result can be so beautiful. The first step is to collect flowers from your backyard and then take them indoors to start pressing them straight away. If you can’t do it straight away put them in a ziplock bag and store them in the refrigerator. Once ready you will need a really heavy book (a phone book or textbook), some parchment paper and your flowers (ask an adult to cut the stems of these).

Here are some simple instructions for pressing flowers:

• Put your flowers on top of some parchment paper with the flower facing down in the middle of your heavy book.
• Then put some parchment paper on top of the flower and close your heavy book.
• Leave your flowers in your heavy book for about 1 week
• Open your book and remove your parchment paper from the pressed flowers
• Your pressed flowers are now ready. You can use glue to stick them to your cards or poems

6. Create some story stones

This activity involves collecting loads of stones and rocks from your outdoor environment. Then using paint, decorate each of your rocks with different words or images of your choice. Patio paint is ideal, but you can use acrylic paints from a tube or acrylic deco pens.

You can use random words/images relating to different characters, settings and anything else you like, such as owls, ladybirds, rainbows, angry face etc. Then with your collection of story stones, you can use them in several ways to tell stories.

• Randomly hide the stones around your garden, then give the kids 60 seconds to find as many as they can. After the time ends, the children can tell stories based on the story stones they have found.
• Use story stones to take your children on a treasure hunt. Lay a trail of story stones leading to the treasure. Ask the children to follow the clues in the story stones to find the treasure.
• In a group ask each child to pick one stone and tell a story. Each child can continue telling the story based on the stone they have in their hand.
• If you have random words painted on your stone, you can use these to tell poems or short stories containing those words

7. Create your own story map

The best way I found to do this activity is by drawing a basic map or layout of your garden on a piece of paper. Then on the map draw the place where the treasure will be or any other reward for your child. Using toys as props start adding some obstacles or challenges on the way. For example, if you have a dinosaur toy, then draw a dinosaur on the map and put the toy in that area and so on. Then ask your child to go and find the treasure using the map you created. Using a little role-play, your child can pretend to go on a real adventure!

Got any more ideas for outdoor writing activities for kids?

What do you think of our outdoor writing activities? We would love to hear your ideas, so please do comment them below. Interested in more outdoor fun? Take a look at our post, 10 fun outdoor activities that improve literacy skills or 10 things you can do with fallen Autumn leaves.