Fun Friday: Land Art

Fun Friday activities are quick-and-simple ways to explore nature in your own backyard. 

Welcome to 2010 – and to the first Fun Friday activity of the New Year. Yipee!

This week’s idea was inspired by fellow blogger Catherine at Adventures With Kids. She posted an idea last month that I couldn’t resist trying: creating land art. It’s simple to do, takes almost no time and lets kids get truly creative – all while playing outdoors.

How it works: Have your little ones gather up some items from the back yard, front yard, park, beach, forest or wherever you enjoy the outdoors. There are no rules about what items “work” and which don’t — it’s the exploring that matters.

The first time we tried this activity, my son gathered up everything from rocks and leaves to flower petals and sticks. (If your child collects his or her goodies and stores them in some type of a nature treasure box, this is a great time to pull those items out and put them to use.)

Once your child has a handful of items, it’s time to start creating! The sky’s the limit, so encourage your child to have fun with it.

Why it’s so fun: Kids love running around gathering up goodies – even if they don’t know why. I didn’t tell my son what he’d be doing with everything he’d collected until he was finished gathering. He seemed to love the challenge of making “art” out of his nature collection.

My son’s true passion lies with cars (anything that has an engine, actually), so he naturally wanted to create a car with the items he collected. Let your child create whatever “art” they can dream up.

Variations on a theme: This activity doesn’t require any special equipment, so you can try it almost anywhere. My son’s first piece of land art was created in our driveway; another on the beach in Oxnard this past week during a family vacation.

There’s also no reason this has to be an individual project. If you have more than one child, want a fun activity for a play date or party, consider creating teams of kids to create land art. When they’re done, the kids will love checking out each others’ creations.

Have fun creating!