The kids getting outside is more my issue. We aren’t in a place where I can ‘send’ them and they can explore it themselves. Mostly because of safety issues. And I’m not a particularly safety-conscious mom.

As far as taking them, this is much more MY problem… I grew up in the tropical jungle, and I live in Alaska. Does any more need to be said? Here is what we do:

**Fresh snow days are mandatory walks / sledding (home schooling makes this possible). **We have nature walks on Fridays with a friend where we sometimes let them loose and sometimes ‘organize’ some sort of nature treasure hunt (the colors, as mentioned above, tree or bird types). **My husband built them a tree house in our small back yard… right up in the branches. **And any exercise is done outdoors as much as possible. Summer hiking and berry picking, Winter walks, skiing and sledding.

One of my kids favorite outdoor activities is to go on a Color Hunt nature walk… I color several circles on some paper, each circle a different color, and we go on a walk outside to find as many things as we can of each color on our chart. It’s a fun way to introduce discovering things in nature and comparing colors, textures, noticing details, so on…