kids activities, art and craft, play dough recipes and more

  • About
  • Activities
    • Active Games
    • Animals
    • Autumn
    • Baby Activities
    • Bedtime
    • Blocks
    • Colours
    • Construction
    • Days Of The Week
    • Dens
    • Faces Theme
    • Farms
    • Fast Fun Play
    • Fine Motor Skills
    • Gardening
    • Geography
    • Getting Lost
    • Gross Motor Skills
    • Guest Posts
    • Hand-Eye Co-Ordination
    • Homeschool
    • I Am Super Capes
    • Loose Parts
    • Mealtimes
    • Memory
    • Messy
    • Misc
    • Music And Rhymes
    • Nature
    • Out And About
    • Outdoor
    • Parenting
    • Playful Preschool
    • Poems
    • Rainbow Theme
    • Rainy Days
    • Recipes
    • Role Play
    • Sand
    • School Gardening Club
    • School Holidays
    • Science
    • Scissor Skills
    • Screen Free Week
    • Seaside
    • Simple Play :: Complex Learning
    • Small world play
    • Songs
    • Space Theme
    • Sponsors
    • Spring
    • Starting School
    • Summer
    • Time
    • Transport theme
    • Water Play
    • Winter
    • Winter Play Planner
    • Zero To Two: The Book Of Play
  • Art and Craft
    • All Art
    • All Crafts
    • Animals
    • Cardboard Box
    • Chalk
    • Clay
    • Collage
    • Handprint Crafts
    • Junk Models
    • Kids Art Explorers
    • Model Making
    • Painting
    • Paper Plate Crafts
    • Printing
    • Puppets
    • Sculpture
    • Sewing
    • Shapes
    • Toilet Roll Crafts
    • Watercolours
    • Weaving
  • By Age
    • 3 – 5 years
    • 5 and older
    • 8 and older
    • Baby
    • Toddlers
  • Festivals
    • All Souls’ Day
    • Birthdays
    • Bonfire Night
    • Chinese New Year
    • Christmas
    • Divali
    • Earth Day
    • Easter
    • Fathers Day
    • Halloween
    • Harvest
    • Homemade presents
    • Leap Year
    • Mothers’ Day
    • New Year
    • Pancake Day
    • Pi Day
    • Ramadan
    • Remembrance Day
    • Solstice
    • St. Swithin’s Day
    • St. David’s Day
    • St. George’s Day
    • St. Patrick’s Day
    • Thanksgiving
    • Valentine’s Day
    • Winter Solstice
    • World Book Day
  • Language
    • All Language
    • Alphabet
    • Books
    • Listening
    • Poetry
    • Reading
    • Sight words
    • Spellings
    • Stories
    • Storybook Springboard
    • Writing
  • Math
    • Adding and Subtraction
    • Counting
    • Fractions
    • Graphs
    • Matching
    • Pi
    • Repeating patterns
    • Shapes
    • Size and volume
    • Symmetry
    • Time
    • Times tables
    • Weight
  • Sensory
    • Clay
    • Cloud Dough
    • Discovery
    • Fizz
    • Ice
    • Paint
    • Play Dough
    • Recipes For Play
    • Sand
    • Sensory Tubs
    • Shaving Foam
    • Smell
    • Water
  • The Garden Classroom
  • NurtureStore Supporters

5 outdoor ABC activities for kids

29/03/2016 by Cathy James Leave a Comment

Jacquie from Edventures with kids joins our ABCs and 123s letter and math series today with five great ideas for outdoor ABC activities.

abctitle

5 outdoor ABC activities for kids


  Free forest school activities, outdoor classroom lesson plans and free forest school printables.  

We love using nature to inspire learning!

Once spring weather sets in, we are more than ready to play, learn and explore using fun outdoor activities.  In order to get more time outdoors during the week, we will often take some of our learning with us.  This is amazingly easy when it comes to repetitive activities such as practicing your ABCs or sight words (and much more fun according to the kids).

Today we’re sharing five fun ways to practice letters and words while enjoying some time outdoors!
 
 
abc outdoor letter hunt for kids

ABC I-spy

There are two ways to play ABC I-Spy.  The first is by looking for letters located on signs, buildings and other places you might visit.  Challenge the kids to find all the letters of the alphabet as you walk to school or the park by looking for each letter in the alphabet in street names and other signs.

The second way to play is similar to the traditional I-Spy game but using the first letter of a word.  For example, on a visit to the playground, you might look around and say “I spy with my little eye, something that begins with the letter S” – the kids would then need to find objects that begin with the letter ‘S’ such as swing or slide.

This can be made easier by also giving kids the sound of the letter in addition to the name of the letter.
You can also make the game more challenging by asking “How many items can you find that begin with the letter B?”  This will encourage kids to continue to scout out multiple items (bunny, bird, bricks, blue sky) as they practice their letters and sounds.
 
 
alphabet land art for kids
 

ABC land art

This is one of our favorite ways to practice our ABCs, spelling words and sight words!

Inspire kids to create letters using items found in nature – sticks, rocks, pinecones, leaves, shells and other small natural manipulatives are perfect for creating both letters and words!

We really enjoy this hands-on learning because it’s so sensory rich and leads to many other questions and surprises.

Outdoor “sounds like…” word families

Similar to I-Spy, this game encourages children to practice their blended letter sounds such as ‘sh’ and ‘br’.  This is for children who have mastered their ABCs are are moving toward sounding out words on their own.

The next time you visit a park or go on a hike, search for items that begin with some of these word families or blended sounds.  It will help to say the blended sound a few times and then give the kids a word that includes the sound.  For example, if you’re looking for items that begin with ‘br’, you would repeat that sound a few times and then say “like the word brown“.
 
 
outdoor letter activity using flowers

ABC nature shapes

It’s amazing what you can find in nature! And the kids always surprise me at how astute they can be when scouting out letter shapes.

During your next outing, look around for various nature items that are shaped like the letters of the alphabet.  Find a leaf that looks like the letter ‘A’ or a stick in the shape of a ‘Y’.

This is a creative activity for kids as children will need to interpret the shapes of nature.  We love this activity because you’ll never know which letters you’ll find and we’re always surprised at how many nature items look like letters.
 
 
mark making in sand outdoor literacy

Writing in nature

Learning to write the ABC’s is just as important as learning to recognize them so it’s always great to find unique ways for kids to practice their ‘penmenship’.

Try these writing activities for fun ways to practice letters and words:

  • Use your fingers to write in the sand
  • Grab a stick and write in the mud
  • Take along a piece of chalk and write as you walk (we call this a ‘Chalk Walk’ and it also works well for practicing numbers, math & site words)

More fun outdoor learning activities

How to Turn Your Backyard into a Science Lab — create Marshmallow Constellations, watch a leaf breathe and more than 20 more science experiments you can do in your own backyard!

50 Outdoor Games, Crafts & Nature Activities — enjoy a huge variety of ways to play, create and explore the outdoors!

Jacquie is the owner & educator behind Edventures with Kids, an extensive resource for parents & educators who are raising curious kids & lifelong learners.  Edventures with Kids provides inspiration & ideas for nature & outdoor exploration, STEM activities, family travel, kids book lists and many more unique ways to learn!

  Free forest school activities, outdoor classroom lesson plans and free forest school printables.  

Filed Under: Alphabet, Outdoor, Spellings

Previous article: How to Teach Counting with Play Dough and Rocks
Next article: Icy numbers sensory math play

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Follow Me on Pinterest
              
  • DISCLOSURE
  •             
  • PRIVACY
  •             
  • COPYRIGHT
  • About / Contact
  • NurtureStore Supporters
  • Free Play Planner
  • Shop
  • Home
  • Activities
  • Disclosure
  • Privacy & Cookie Policy
  • Copyright
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, analyse site usage, show you ads that might interest you, and provide social media features. By using this site, you are agreeing to our Privacy & Cookie Policy