4 ideas for outdoor learning fun from an expert - a dad and education chief for NC State Parks

As education chief with North Carolina State Parks, I support more than 50,000 students a year during hundreds of field trips to our parks. The next few weeks, I’m among the parents and guardians unexpectedly home with children. Kids are especially bummed. They are missing their friends, field trips, sports and other activities. For adults and kids alike, time outdoors is emotionally rejuvenating – and fun.

Spring is a special time for time observing the outdoors as each day brings something new that wasn’t out the day before - new flowers, budding trees with inchworms (caterpillars) hanging down, new bird calls, tadpoles in puddles, emerging box turtles. Plus, the ticks and mosquitoes have yet to arrive in numbers. Here are some ideas for fun outdoor learning.

I find that my kids are more engaged in their reading when they do it someplace novel. So we set up our camping tent in the backyard as a reading spot. A hammock, folding chair by a creek, or the front steps of the house will work too. You can also practice writing and labeling nature on the trail for early readers.

The next few months will become life-long memory for kids. I’m hopeful that mine will remember reading in our backyard tent, blowing dandelion seeds, catching spiders and identifying wildflowers along with our challenges.