Today’s post is part of “Your Green Hour Survival Guide,” a series which I hope will provide you with inspiration to make getting outside every day a habit.
It’s hard to believe that the start of school is right around the corner. Summer has flown by. Although I’m in a bit of denial, the calendar doesn’t lie. There’s just a little more time left before the cooler, grayer, more scheduled days of fall are here again.
This is about the time last year when our plan to get outside every day and connect with nature fell apart. Before I knew it, we’d turned into weekend nature warriors, spending less time outside during the week and saving it all up for Saturday and Sunday.
This year I’ve got a plan, one I hope will help continue the fun of summer right into fall. We’ve taken a common summer idea – the activity jar – and put our own spin on it.
The idea of an activity jar is pretty simple: write down a bunch of things you’d like to do and put the ideas in a jar. Every day (or week), you pick out a strip of paper and partake in the suggested activity.
What’s our spin? We’re limiting the types of activities in our jar to those we can do outside. And the activities aren’t limited to summer since the seasons in Los Angeles are mild enough that we can do most things year round.
Make Your Own Outdoor Activity Jar
- Let everyone contribute ideas. I’m pretty sure the big explorer got a kick out of adding his very own ideas into our activity jar. (The little explorer is still too young to come up with his own ideas for outdoor fun, so I made sure to do so on his behalf.)
- Keep it colorful. Just for fun, we used different colored paper for different types of activities. Green and blue for things we could do in our own backyard; orange and pink for places in nature we want to visit.
- Keep your ideas a secret. The big explorer and I had a lot of fun dreaming up fun things to do. The most fun was not sharing our ideas with each other. Until I took the pictures for this post, I hadn’t seen any of his contributions.
Think it’ll work? Ever tried anything like this before? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
