Here are five fun nature based play ideas for young children. Get inspired to use natural resources to encourage play with your young kids.
Updated March 2025
If you enjoyed our list of 5 Nature Art Ideas for Toddlers, then you will love this post featuring five ways to use nature within play. We hope it inspires you to use the great outdoors a little more.
Now that the weather is getting warmer, everyone wants to get outside! So why not bring the play outside, too? Go for a nature hunt around the backyard and see what you can find.
As a reminder, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- You DO NOT have to purchase any fancy rocks, bark, flowers etc. to include nature in your play. Get your kids involved and go on a nature hunt together. I promise you, they will love it.
- You don’t always have to plan your activity, but can use your environment for inspiration. Fallen petals or even an old bouquet can provide so many learning experiences. Weeds are also one of my firm favorites. It’s amazing how many ideas I have for dandelion petals and leaves!
5 Nature Based Play Ideas
1. Small World Play
This is one of my all-time favorite activities to set up, probably because I can share my own creativity. In this particular set up, avocado shells are the dinosaur eggs. The rocks, stones, and bark have been collected on previous nature walks. The grass cuttings and fern leaves are freshly cut from my garden.
If you don’t have a dinosaur-loving little one, not to worry, add in some small fairy characters, or mini diggers or let your little ones Peppa Pig characters go on an adventure. It’s easy to tailor small world setups to your little one’s interests and watch their imagination run wild.
2. Nature Ice Blocks
Kids love playing with ice! Add in a few petals or leaves and it creates a whole new level of excitement. I did prep this the night before, but honestly, it only took minutes. I used containers and food packaging to act as an ice-cube tray that would create different shaped blocks.
Your little ones can use the nature ice blocks as a sensory experience. Or take it one step further and try to melt the ice to retrieve the petals and leaves.
3. Mud Cupcakes
Scooping, transferring and pouring are all skills that children will learn throughout their childhood journey and will continue to use as they grow. Mud cupcakes are a fantastic example of how to encourage development of these skills.
My youngest adored this activity and used her hands, the spoon and the actual cupcake holders to transfer the soil. In the midst of all of the fun, she was discovering quantity and started to sprinkle the soil into the cupcake until it was full.
4. Matching Sticks
This is a new idea of ours that I just started to use with my children. My take on a matching game involves using the real thing. My little ones used an actual leaf to look at the exact shape, size and color and then located it in our garden.
This would also work great on a nature walk. Plan in advance to collect the leave to allow the glue time to dry.
5. Sorting Nature Based Play
We don’t need to buy expensive resources for our little ones to access an amazing educational experience. My little boy was in his element when I showed him our sticky squares taped to the window. On the other side of the room was a basket of leaves.
His task was to look at the leaves, and organize them into four groups. Once he placed one of each leaf in a section of the sticky window, he then had to sort the remaining leaves accordingly.
I hope that I provided you with some simple, easy and relatively cheap (if not free) nature based play ideas to try with your children.
Nature Based Play Ideas for Kids
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