Nature Walk

I found an idea for a color coded nature walk in Family Fun a while back and I have been dying to try it out. The idea is to color the sections of an egg carton and have the kids search for items to match the colors. This sounded right up Emma's alley and I liked it because it was a fun (and free) thing to do.  Here she is with her carton at the beginning of our walk, ready to start filling:

This activity really helped Emma pay attention to her surroundings while she focused on one specific color.  I wasn't very optimistic about finding items for all the colors since it's winter, but we knew we'd still have fun trying.

Today was a little warmer and it seemed like the perfect day to try out our nature walk.  Emma understood her task easily enough and found a green and brown item pretty quickly.  We guided her through the rest and she had a great time searching for her items.

She said she wanted to ride this "big turtle."

This was the best find of the day.  She found this claw on the banks of the stream.  It was an "honorary black item", but we decided to leave it there. :)

Toddler Rule: When in doubt, poke with stick.

Even though there wasn't much out at this time of the year, she still managed to fill up her entire carton. Here's what she found: Red berries, an orange rock, a yellow leaf, green pine sprig, blue flower, purple leaf, brown acorn and pine cone, black rock, white flowers, and pink dogwood bud. 

After Emma filled her container, we had a chance to get out and play for a bit.

This was such a fun activity for all of us and I'm excited to try it again in the spring.  Since most of the items won't last, I'm thinking of taking a picture of each item and putting them into a little book so she can see how the variety changes each season.

The carton can be made with any colors.  The magazine's example even used various shades of colors.  We still have two uncolored sections left in our carton.  I might let Emma choose one of the colors and also choose a "challenge" color for our next walk.

Let me know if you try this with your kiddos and if they enjoyed it as much as mine!