Some kids just wake up wanting to explore the world. Others…not so much. Many children require quite a few gentle nudges to get outside or go somewhere to enjoy nature. I have one of the latter. He much prefers engineering and building and of course, screens.
One activity that never fails to entertain my kids ia building shelters in nature. Whether it is large enough to get in or small enough for an animal, creating shelters can provide hours of great outdoor *and STEM* fun! Here are a few ideas for outdoor shelters:
Build a teepee style shelter with logs and sticks.
Find some good sticks to stack against each other for a teepee style shelter. Finding sticks with forks at the top are helpful for the initial support of the structure. After you have a solid frame, fill in around by finding materials (small sticks? weave tall grasses through the supports? cover with branches of leaves??) Figuring out how to support the structure and then fill in the spaces is so much fit for the kids! Will there be a door? Let their engineering minds work hard!
Build a Lean-to
These are great to build onto a fallen log. Gather large sticks and lean them agains the log. Then decide what to use to keep the weather out!
Build small animal shelters through your yard or in the woods.
What will they need? how will you keep the rain out? where would be a good location? All of these questions get their minds working!
Build a bug hotel
A bug hotel? yes! Bugs are so important! Simply bundling sticks and grasses with lots of spaces for bugs to crawl in or drilling holes in wood pieces, bug hotels can look may different ways. You can also get several outside trips for this project as you collect different materials like pinecones, sticks, and maybe even some leaves and plant material. There are some fantastic ideas for bug hotels HERE.
Build an igloo
Got Snow? After all the initial fun is over, suggest building a snow shelter. It could be as simpler as piling up snow and carving out a cave….or as complex as an igloo! Snow is a great building material.
Whether you bring old sheets and and twine or just rely on natural materials, building shelters in nature is a fun outdoor STEM activity for everyone!