Four Outdoor Activity Ideas for Kids
While we’re all staying home these days, getting outside for exercise, playing, and learning is a must! The warmer, sunnier weather is a perfect chance to take kids outside to burn off energy and get fresh air.
Here are a few ideas for easy outdoor activities to do with kids at home, or on your next (long-awaited!) Lake Chelan vacation. The Lookout vacation home rentals have great outdoor areas and the whole neighborhood is easy and safe for kids to explore.
1. Walking Bingo
At home: A simple walk around the neighborhood, your backyard, or an urban street can be more entertaining for kids when they’re looking for specific items. It’s also a great chance to slow down and observe. Make your own bingo card and check off items as you walk. This could include: seeing a neighbor’s cat, a bee in a flower, a person riding a bike, or a bird digging for a worm. Keep filling out the card (more walks!) until someone gets Bingo, and have your kids make their own cards once they get the hang of it!
At The Lookout: The same idea applies, but here are a few ideas specific to our walkable neighborhood: grapes on a vine, a house with a yellow door, people playing pickleball or bocce ball, a flamingo pool floatie, a red umbrella, a porch swing, a dog swimming in the lake. There’s a lot to see right outside your vacation rental home!
2. Polaroid Rainbow
At home: Walk or bike around your neighborhood and snap photos on a Polaroid camera of things of all colors! Red doors, stop signs, or mailboxes; blue cars or flowers; yellow lines on the street. When you get home, tape the colorful photos up in the shape of a rainbow. Right now, many people are putting rainbows in their front windows as a sign of hope, and this is a fun way to spread this happiness to neighbors.
At The Lookout: It’s no secret that our neighborhood is colorful! Vacation homes in all shades, bright accent colors on front doors, flowers and plants lining the sidewalks, and fun outdoor furniture and decorations. Let your older kids roam free (a huge perk of our slow and safe streets, sidewalks, and trails) or take your younger ones on a walk together as they snap photos of all the colors of The Lookout.
3. Mud Kitchen
At The Lookout: The sandy beach cove is a perfect place for your kids to practice their outdoor cooking skills. And the cleanup is pretty easy: a quick dip in Lake Chelan and the mess is gone!
At home: An old pot, cups, or spoons, a hose, and a patch of dirt is all you need for a mud kitchen! It can be that simple (or more complex if you want to build a pretend oven, stove, sink, etc – a fun but more involved project!) Have your kids create a menu and you can “order” something from their restaurant. Mud pie, anyone?
4. Foliage Faces
At home: Gather items from around your yard or neighborhood to design into the shape of a face! Leaves become lips, sticks become eyebrows, moss becomes hair. Take photos and then brush the face away and start over to see how many you can create. Have your kids create self-portraits!
At The Lookout: The same idea applies, but the items they can find in nature will be different. Look for wildflowers and sagebrush on the walk down to the waterfront, grapes on fences between houses, and different colors of grasses. If you go hiking in the Chelan area, gather up different types of flowers, pine needles, and leaves to bring back to your Lookout vacation home to add to your masterpiece.
Do you have any nature-based activities that your kids like to do at The Lookout? Tell us on Facebook or tag us at #lookoutlakechelan in your Instagram photo!
