Outside - It's All Kid's Play (.ca)

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Outside

Outside

Outside!

Hey! Let's go outside and have some fun.

Enjoy!

P.S. Also check out the outside: dark and outside: winter and get out of the house activities for ideas on what to do once you are out in the great outdoors.

Let's Pretend activities with a link have been featured on the It's All Kid's Play blog. These activities may have a photo on the blog as well as more detailed instructions than are shown here.

P.S. Wondering where a favourite activity went? The site is undergoing some changes and some of the activities have been temporarily shelved. Check back to see what's in the works.

Animals	Camping Activities
Catch butterflies You must be gentle with butterflies and moths. They have a special dust covering their wings that is needed for their health and ability to fly. Look for the first robin of spring Catch bugs You can place caught bugs in a jar. Make sure you place holes in the lid so they can breathe. After you are done watching them, make sure you let them go again. You can learn more about the bugs you catch in a bug book. Track an animal When animals walk through fresh snow, mud, soft sand or dirt they leave foot tracks that you can follow. In most areas, bird tracks, dog tracks, cat tracks and people tracks are easy to find. Maybe you will even find racoon, deer or bear tracks. What kind of animal tracks do you see? Where did the animal go? If you can’t tell what kind of animal tracks you see, look it up in a book at the library. Safety First: Wild animals can be dangerous. If you see a wild animal, stay far away. Play fetch with a dog Go bird watching Curious about a bird you saw? Look it up in a bird guide.	Go camping If your family goes in an RV most of the time, ask if you are old enough to stay beside them in a tent. Bring a friend for extra fun. Not going anywhere soon? Try camping in your backyard! Bonfire/Campfire A bonfire is a large fire. You can make a small ‘bonfire’ or campfire in a fire pit. Safety First: Never play with or around a fire. Make sure you have an adult set up the fire and light it for you. Also make sure you have water ready to put out any part of a fire that gets out of control. Toast marshmallows over a fire To toast marshmallows, let your fire burn down to just coals or very small flames. Be careful: your fire and the pit will still be very hot. Place a marshmallow on a roasting stick and hold it over the coals. Watch that it doesn’t start on fire. If it catches on fire, remove it slowly from the fire. Check out the s'more recipe in the food fun section. Sing campfire songs If you don’t know any campfire songs, ask your parents or grandparents to teach you some. You can also find campfire songs in camping or song books in the library (ask a librarian for help) or find some on the Internet. Tell scary/ghost stories If you don’t know any scary/ghost stories, ask your parents or grandparents to share some with you. You can also find scary ghost stories in library books (ask a librarian for help) or search for ghost stories on the Internet.
A Little Bit Goofy/Different	Build
Find cloud animals Lie on your back and look at the clouds—whoa! Is that a giraffe? Try to go over-bars on the swings Over-bars is when you swing as high as you can on the swings and try to go over the bar that holds the swings up. Hold on tight! Geocaching Geocaching is a sport that uses a GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) receiver to find a hidden cache (a small container that contains a logbook and sometimes trinkets for trading). If you don’t have a GPS or know of one that you can borrow, you might be able to rent one from a sporting goods rental place. To find a hidden geocache near you, log onto the free website www.geocaching.com. You can search for nearby caches which will list the longitude and latitude coordinates to put into your GPS so you can find the cache. The website has more information about the sport as well as rules. It is free and a great way to get outside and enjoy a nice treasure hunt!	A fort Any spot like under big bushes, a hollow spot in the hedge, under a tree or under the deck makes a good spot for a fort. A fairy house A fairy house is made for fairies to live in. It must be made out of natural materials that you find in the woods (where fairies like to live). That means, no plastic, metal or other things that man has made. Fairies like their homes to be made out of things like dead leaves, bark, twigs, shells, pine cones, berries and other things you can find. But fairies don't like it when you kill things to make their home. That means, don't pick flowers, leaves still living on a tree or branches still growing on a tree. A tipi Materials needed: three bamboo sticks (or regular wood stakes or sticks—about 1 metre long (3 feet) or longer), climbing plants (like sweet peas, beans, hops, or ivy), dirt, twine, three cans or pots. Place dirt and one stick in each pot. Place the pots in a circle and angle the sticks so you can tie the tops of the sticks together. Plant seeds in each plant and water them in. As the plants grow, help direct them up the sticks, they will create a tipi. You can build this one outside, inside or even on the balcony of an apartment. VARIATION: If you want to play in your tipi right now, you will only need cloth, string and the sticks. Place the sticks in the ground making a triangle. Angle the sticks so you can tie the tops together. Then cover the sticks with cloth and climb in.
Get Active	More
Horseshoes Hopscotch Ride a scooter Kick a small stone around Playground If there's a new kid, introduce yourself! You may make a new friend. Give someone an under whale (Like an underduck, but it is big and 'whooshy'. What other animals can you do? Giraffe? Sparrow? Elephant?) Go for a walk around your neighbourhood Tetherball In-line skating Play catch Skateboarding Jump on a trampoline Make sure you have a spotter (someone to catch you if you fall) and jump with one player at a time--it is safer. Fly a kite Safety First: Make sure you fly kites away from power lines and trees. If you get your kite caught in something, make sure you let go of the string and get an adult to help you get your kite down. If you are feeling creative, you can make your own kite. You can find instructions for kite making in books or online. Lawn bowling / Bocce ball Materials needed: You will need at least 5 balls and 2 players. One of the balls will be the ‘jack’. The jack is usually a smaller ball. It is placed in the playing area. The players then try to get their balls as close to the jack as they can without touching it. Bocce Ball and Lawn Bowling are slightly different, but the basic idea in both games is that you want to get as close to another ball without touching it.	Watch the sunrise/sunset Look for fossils Draw on the sidewalk with chalk Don’t have sidewalk chalk? You can make your own using the recipe in the arts and crafts area. Water balloon fight Fill a balloon with water, by holding the end over the tap. Tie it off and give it a toss (outside of course!). Make a lemonade stand and sell lemonade If it isn’t good weather for selling lemonade, you can make the stand now and sell the lemonade some other time. If you aren’t interested in selling lemonade, you can sell other things, like artwork or crafts you have made. (You can also rent tables at Farmer’s Markets to sell your wares.) Charlie Brown You might have trouble finding a teeter totter, but if you can find one, here is a game to play. On a teeter totter, take turns being Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown keeps the other player in the air until they guess his or her favourite colour. (Charlie Brown must pick a favourite colour before putting the other player in the air.) The player in the air says: “Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown, please let me down”. Charlie Brown replies: “Not until you guess my favourite colour”. Once the favourite colour has been guessed, they come down and become Charlie Brown. Look for a fossil

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