Walks Outdoor

Walks Outdoor
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It’s the Golden Age of the walk. Since COVID-19 shut down all the museums, playgrounds, schools, restaurants, and pretty much everything else, there seems to be only one thing we can all do to stay sane and make sure our kids actually fall asleep at night: Walk. And while fresh air and physical activity is always a good thing, after three months or more of strolling—often the same few routes—we’re betting your daily walks could use some spicing up. So, we bring you 15 ways to upgrade your family walks, and even safely bring some friends along. See our list below, then share with us your own ideas in the comments!
Scoot Or Bike With A Small Crew. Put on your masks and grab your wheels! Biking, scooting, skateboarding, even roller skating is a fun way to socially distance with a few friends on your regular walk route.
Go On A Scavenger Hunt. Write out a list and head out and hunt. Whether it’s rainbows or BLM posters in windows, Volkswagen Beetles, out-of-state plates, or street names that start with the same letter as your name, the options are endless. Ask kids to make their own lists for extra-wacky fun.
Walk At Night. Flashlights, glow sticks, and blinking bike lights will add a whole new dimension of adventure to your typical walk route. You could even brush up on your astronomy and do some start spotting. Some of our favorite kid-friendly books are Astronomy For Kids: Planets, Stars and Constellations and The Faces, or Phases, of the Moon – Astronomy Book for Kids .
Run. Lace up and take the whole family on a jog. Set some destination goals and see if your crew can make it without breaking their stride!
Take A Listening Walk. Challenge your kiddos—and yourself—to zip your lips, as you put your ears and other senses to the test. What do you hear and notice around you? You can each write down and share your observations once you’re all allowed to speak.
Make Deliveries. Gather up some homemade gifts—letters, cards, artwork, bundles of just-baked cookies, bags of fresh lemons, or fresh-cut flower or herb bouquets from the garden—and set off to brighten your neighbors’ day. Drop packages on the doorstep, knock, then head back to the sidewalk to safely watch them retrieve their care package.
Climb Aboard The Jumprope Train. A standard jumprope makes an ideal social-distance-measuring tool, and going on a woodsy hike turning this way and that—with the leader holding the front of the rope and the caboose clutching the other end—will turn your daily walk in to a wild ride and let you safely hang with a friend!
Bring A Picnic. Pack up some grub, drinks, and a lightweight blanket and set off on an extended adventure, complete with a lunch break. Let the kiddos select the picnic spot, and don’t be afraid of getting creative or heading off trail to find a super secluded locale.
Find A New Route. Whether you live near the woods or in the middle of a concrete jungle, do a little research and map out some heart-pumping new treks near you. Conquer city steps, local trails, or even take a drive to find something new to you.
Wear a Blindfold. Heading out into the world without one of your major senses lets you experience things in a whole new way. Watch this video on how to guide a blind person and put your new skills to use guiding your child (or having a big sib guide a younger one) through familiar routes.
Make Art Along The Way. Head out with a stash of chalk and stop and make art along the way. Create a game of hop scotch in the park, spread some Black Lives Matter messages, chalk some clues for fellow walkers to follow, or write out some jokes to get strangers chuckling. And who knows, your art could spark a trend, with neighbors joining in to contribute to your outdoor gallery.
Get To Know Your Neighborhood Birds & Fauna. Download the Audubon bird identification app and get to know the birds hanging around your hood. Or, become a botanist and learn about your local flora and fauna by adding an app like PlantSnap to your daily walks.
Collect Specimens. Tote a Tupperware container and collect interesting plants, deceased bugs, or extra special rocks. Once you’ve brought them back to your home lab, experiment, research, or make some art with your finds!
Plant Something. Scatter some wildflower seeds in an empty lot or local park and stroll by all season to check the progress. We love these wildflower seed bombs that are easy to toss over fences.
Take Photographs. Do you have an old camera sitting around that got forgotten after the iPhone moved in? Teach the kids the basics then set them loose. Do they gravitate snapping architecture? Flowers? Patterns? You can even print out the images and make a book to remember these days of endless walking for all time.
Need more ideas for keeping kids entertained all summer long beyond these walking activities? Check out 50 Things To Do With Kids This Summer and 100 Screen-Free Activities To Do At Home With Kids .
ALL MATERIAL © MOTHER LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. SITE DESIGNED BY JANE REACTION , DEVELOPED BY BRANDI BERNOSKIE

Rebecca Reynandez is a Marketing and Communications Consultant and Principal of Spring Media Strategies, LLC. She has worked with nonprofits for the past 10 years and currently focuses on working with environmental organizations. She is based in Minneapolis, MN.
One simple way teachers and parents can observe Earth Day is to take learning outside and have children interact with their environment. Nature walks are a fun and easy way to bring your students outdoors, whether it’s on the school grounds, in your backyard, or at a park or another local place of interest.
Doing a nature walk is not only about celebrating Earth Day. It’s also an opportunity for learning experiences in a variety of subjects such as science, geography, math, and art. Each nature walk offers something different for students to explore – even if you walk the same trails from one day to the next. If you live in a colder climate, the changing seasons can be another great way to observe plants and animals as the weather shifts.
Such experiences can be exhilarating, fun, and inspirational. We often hear students say, when we go outdoors we don’t really know we’re doing it, but we’re actually learning math, doing science, and practicing English, so it’s just making it educational and fun at the same time.
In this article, we’ll take look at some activities that will ensure your nature walks are an engaging and enriching learning experience for students of all ages.
Oftentimes in a scavenger hunt, objects are hidden throughout the search area and the children then search out these items. However, instead of looking for pre-hidden objects, students can look for plants, animals, and objects found in nature. For example, this ‘ Nature Scavenger Hunt Grid ’ sets out some basic things to look for such as water, a spider web, and bark. Use this Bingo sheet created by our Michigan PLT state program, or you could also create your own grid or checklist suited to a particular grade level or topic.
Not only could students look around their surroundings for artistic inspiration on nature walks, they could collect objects to be included in a piece of art, such as pieces of bark, dried leaves, seed pods or sticks (make sure you do your research on plants in your area so you’re sure what you collect is safe to use).
Get students to gather a collection of seeds from a wooded area. They can drag an old blanket or fuzzy cloth behind them on the ground. They can place a large, old, wool sock over hands or shoes to see what they can pick up. Or they can wear bracelets made of masking tape (sticky side out), to hold the seeds they find. Have children examine their seed collections and invent a system for sorting or classifying them. Explain that plants have developed many different methods of seed dispersal, to ensure the success of their species.
Local ponds, swamps, and dams are teeming with microorganisms and bugs. Why not take some dip nets and magnifying glasses with you on your nature walk? Stop at these ponds and allow children to do some dip netting to see what sort of critters live in the ponds. Students could also pick different environments during their nature walks and make observations on sunlight, soil moisture, temperature, wind, water flow, plants, and animals in each.
Forests provide a variety of ecosystem services and help to maintain a clean and plentiful water supply. Older students may want to explore the connection between forests and watersheds, and evaluate the extent to which their own community’s water supply is affected by forests and forest management.
One of the best things to do on a nature walk is to simply observe what nature has to offer. With an app such as iNaturalist , students can record, catalog and share what they have found. The app also facilitates connection with thousands of scientists to help users identify the species they have observed. With other apps such as Leafsnap or the online tree identification field guide from the Arbor Day Foundation , students can also identify the trees and plant species in their area.
You could time your nature walks, work out the distance, and calculate your average speed on your walk. Another great activity is to have students measure trees in different ways to get familiar with a tree’s scale and structure. These activities will add a new element to nature walks!
Students can construct detailed maps as they explore. During their walk, they can note the tracks, rivers, landmarks, or other unique natural features. These maps could even be given to other students in different grade levels to facilitate exploration activities, such as a treasure hunt. You can vary this activity’s difficulty level by changing what students are required to map. For example, older kids could include topographical information, scales, and grid lines, to name a few.
Have children pick a nearby tree that is special to them and spend time observing and learning about the tree. Get them to “adopt” their tree and keep a journal (you could use this Adopt a Tree Journal template developed by Minnesota PLT) to record and analyze information they collect over time. Use it to help children really get to know about that special tree in their lives on nature walks over the course of a school year, or a semester.
If you’re exploring environmental issues and sustainability, this is often a go-to activity for Earth Day and Arbor Day.
If you’re able to extend your time outdoors, having a snack or meal is a great way to take a break while you’re exploring the outdoors. Use the opportunity to enjoy some bird watching or talk with children about what they have seen and learned. Or if they have taken photos, take some time to share and discuss them as a class.
It’s a great idea to take some big garbage bags along with you on your walk and pick up some trash if you see it lying around. This can be a segue into some Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Lesson Ideas . Many of these hands-on project ideas can be adapted for any grade.
If you have access to tablets, there are many educational apps that you can integrate into lesson plans. We’ve pulled together 12 science apps for middle and high school students on the topics of climate change, conservation, weather, and more.
Every month we carefully select new educational apps, videos, interactive websites, books, careers information, and teacher-generated materials that support PLT lessons.
Help students use Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math applications to identify ways they can improve their school or neighborhood.
Students conduct a health checkup of a local forest or wooded area, take forestry measurements, and evaluate the ecological services provided by trees and forests.
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4 Reasons Why Walking Outside Benefits the Brain

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Demanding schedules leave many people feeling trapped inside, not able to enjoy nature as regularly as one may desire. Additionally, a busy home life makes it difficult to get out of the house from time to time. However, the benefits of walking outside every day are proven to help keep the brain healthy. Even if all you have time for is a ten minute walk, it’s worth it! Read this list of four reasons why going on a walk outside in nature benefits the brain.
I’m sure you’ve heard this expression at some point. Getting fresh air allegedly helps a person feel better. However, not many people know what getting fresh air does for the brain. Oxygen is absolutely essential in maintaining healthy brain function, growth, and healing. In fact, the brain uses about three times as much oxygen for healthy neuron function, as muscles do. The brain is extremely sensitive to decreases in oxygen levels. Therefore when a person takes a walk outside, getting to breathe fresh outdoor air actually improves brain function, especially if a person is cooped up in an office most of the day. A great suggestion for better work performance is to take a walk outside of the office during breaks!
Spending time outdoors with natural scenery has actually been proven to improve brain function such as concentration. In fact, one study took a group of children with ADHD and compared how well they performed after they were split into two groups. One of the groups spent the majority of the time after school and on weekends in outdoor green spaces, and the other group spent most of their time playing indoors. The group playing outside showed fewer symptoms of ADHD than their counterparts, even while performing the same tasks.
When out in sunlight, a person’s skin synthesizes vitamin D, an essential nutrient for healthy brain function. Vitamin D actually protects the neurons in the brain and reduces inflammation. There have also been connections drawn to between vitamin D and neurotransmitter synthesis and nerve growth. All of these are essential to our daily functioning, and therefore vitamin D is extremely important, yet vitamin D deficiency continues to become more common each year. Getting out into the sunlight will give you some of the vitamin D you need. Again, even if you can get out for only ten minutes, it’s still worth it!
So many people are working inside of a building all day, getting stressed out by a variety of factors in their work place. Going outside can help reduce this stress. Scientists have discovered physiological evidence that suggests spending time in nature reduces stress, such as observed lowered heart rates and less time spent thinking about problems and/or insecurities. Furthermore, taking a walk outside will help the brain produce endorphins, which are neurotransmitters responsible for regulating mood. Both being outside and walking can work together to create positive changes in overall state of mind.
Update: The National Academy of Science in the US has proven that walking in nature actually changes your brain.
Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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