Want to encourage your kids to play outside, but the weather isn’t great and you are wondering if it is worth the hassle and how you can get them out the door?
Follow our tips for playing outside all year round and try our HUGE free printable scavenger hunt list!
Playing outside improves behaviour, reduces stress and anxiety, offers lots of opportunities for learning and development in all areas, and lots of opportunity for healthy physical activity.
We all know that playing outside is good for kids, and it’s good for us adults too, but sometimes it feels almost impossible to go outside. Maybe the weather is freezing cold or maybe it’s too hot, or maybe outside is ‘boring’… all of these things are common excuses, so lets try and ditch the excuses and find ways to get outside with the kids.
When the weather is bad.
“There is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.”- Raulph Fiennes
I heard this saying a lot as a child, and I am pretty sure I rolled my eyes a lot in response, but it’s true. Put on some warm, waterproof clothes and go outside! If my kids have warm hands, a warm head, and warm feet, they’ll stay out for hours. It also helps to plan your outside time for the middle of the day when it is warmest, and plan something active to help keep you warm.
You could simply take a walk in the rain with an umbrella, or you could paint with the rain, or paint on the snow if you are lucky enough to have some, or make an origami boat to float in the puddles.
We get some super hot days during summer, and with fair skinned kids who get sunburned in an instant, hot weather can make going outside just as daunting as it is in winter. But if you head outside early in the day, or wait until the late afternoon when the sun is not so strong, it’s easy to get outside even on the hottest days. Make sure you have sun protection, take some water with you, and find a cool spot in the shade to do some quiet activities.
The best way to enjoy outside play on a hot day is with some water games! Try one of these simple water play set ups, freeze some fun things into ice blocks or play a game of ‘Drip Dip Drop’ (Just like duck duck goose but carry a cup of water and drip a drip on each persons head, until you choose one to drop the whole cup on and then run!)
Free Printable Mega Huge Scavenger Hunt.
Let’s face it, there is nothing worse than putting on coats and hats and mittens and boots, or finding sun hats and slathering on sunscreen, or taking your hay fever meds and finally getting everyone out the door, only to have them all want to come in five minutes later because they are bored!
We fixed that problem with our super, mega, huge, free printable, scavenger hunt!
This is not the kind of scavenger hunt you can do in an afternoon, it’s not even the kind you could do in a day, this scavenger hunt is going to take you a lot of outside time to complete.
There are more than 60 different things to find, and some of them are pretty tricky. Some items on the list you can collect, but many you’ll have to snap a photo of, or make a sketch to prove you’ve actually found them. Keep a copy of the list in the car, or your pocket whenever you head outside, you never know what you might be able to tick off the list!
You can download the super mega huge free printable scavenger hunt list here.
This printable is an A4 sized pdf file, you will need a pdf reader such as adobe acrobat to open it. If you are printing on US ‘letter sized’ paper be sure to select ‘fit’ or ‘shrink to fit’ from your printer options.
Please remember that the printables at picklebums.com are for personal use only, you may not sell, share, or link directly to these files.
Do you get outside every day?
What’s your best tip for getting outside even when it’s a bit tricky?
Thanks for this article about getting outside! Parents, caregivers, adults that are with children are just as “guilty” of whining “its too cold” “hot” … I really like the quote about no bad weather, just inappropriate clothing. I’m a retired teacher, and grandparent of 3…printing up the Scavenger Hunt list to read aloud to them as we go on our “adventures”.
I agree, it is usually the adults making the excuses!
Love the scavenger hunt – what a great idea! And the hayfever advice is great for my hubby who suffers terribly!
This is exactly what we need right now, the kids are bored with the regulars so a huge scavenger hunt will be a nice change :) and have to admit I make excuses for going outside too!!! You are right though, there are ways to overcome them
I never thought to take my daughter to the doctor for her hay fever! We always went to the pharmacy and sometimes the medication worked and sometimes it didn’t. Great advice, thanks :)
I’ve had hay fever really bad this year. Thankfully I still get out with the girls. This Scavenger hunt is AWESOME!
We try to go outside all year round – maybe not every day, (I have to admit the uber-stormy days usually keep us inside) but as much as we can. We went outside three times today, adding up to about 8 hours worth, and loved every minute of it!
This is so helpful. Love the hunt. Always great to get kids outside.
Such a great post Kate! So true that kids need to get outside no matter what the weather. And love your scavenger hunt EPIC list! xx
Hi Kate!
We love outdoors and we do go outside every day! We hardly ever get bad weather here in Finland :-) We avoid going outside whenever there is a storm with trees falling (lots of trees here) and things flying around. Luckily, that does not happen very often.
I think I need to move to Finland! We have very changeable weather here which sometimes makes things very tricky!
The quote about inappropriate clothing is so on point. There really is no excuse for you and your kid not to enjoy spending time under the sun. Just choose the safest time throughout the day to do so. A scientifically proven trick is the shadow test. If your shadow is shorter than you, that’s a sign that you’re being exposed to higher levels of UV radiation from the sun.