13 Ways to Enjoy Nature This Spring with Your Kids

With a snowstorm bearing down on us, we recently turned to our Facebook community for forward-thinking ideas for getting outside with kids once the snow has melted. We asked, “What is your favorite way to connect with the kids in your life outside in the spring?”

To sweeten the deal, we offered each contributor a chance to win a bubble making kit. Congratulations Kirstin Mack for winning this bubbly sweepstakes!

Parents, guardians, aunts, uncles, teachers, and friends responded with a wide variety of ways to enjoy the beauty of our landscape in spring with young explorers:

These family memories are more than fun excursions into the fields and forests that surround us. When we encourage our young children to be curious, to explore, to touch, and to ask “Why?” about the world around them, we offer opportunities for brain development, for confidence and skill building, and for a connection with nature. In an age of touch screens and social media, so many of our young citizens are discovering their identities in a digital world. By encouraging and nourishing a strong connection to the physical, living, breathing planet around them, we help our children develop healthy and happy habits.