5 Favourite Activities for Outdoor Education

Children love everything to do with the great outdoors. They enjoy exploring, picking fruit, climbing trees and playing with water. Without even realising it, these fun outdoor activities are also educational and can offer many benefits to your child’s development.

There are many outdoor activities you can enjoy with your kids to help develop their literacy and numeracy skills, as well as their love of learning. Here are five favourites suggested by The British School of Malaga…

1. Nature treasure hunt

This is a really simple and fun outdoor learning activity. Parents need to create a checklist with lots of natural objects that can be found outside. It is then up to your children to go on a treasure hunt to collect them. This could take place in the garden, at a local park or at the beach. A few examples to include in your checklist are: a feather, a seed, a pebble or a sea shell.

2. Finding flowers

How many different flowers can you find in your garden or at a local park? Create a list with flower names and images and then let your child use this list to identify them. You can even offer bonus points for spotting rare flowers or ones visited by bees and butterflies.

3. Ant watch

Introduce your child to the magnificent world of ants. Try following them back to their home and see what they’re up to. Where do they live? How many can you count in one place? Teach your child fascinating ant facts or ask them to record their own observations in an ant diary. You will soon see their ant appreciation grow!

4. Vegetable patch

Growing a vegetable patch is a great way to teach your child that eating fruit and vegetables is an important part of a healthy diet. It will also help your child to explore seasonality, as well as new foods. They will enjoy watching their vegetables grow and then they will have the pleasure of picking and eating their very own, home grown produce!