To say The Explorers are excited about Halloween would be an understatement. In the spirit of the season, this weekend we created our own Halloween nature scavenger hunt, then went on a pre-Halloween walk around the neighborhood looking for all sorts of goodies.
At first, most of what we found was unnatural – store-bought spider webs and spiders, a scarecrow – even a black bird we were sure was supposed to be a crow.
But within a few minutes, we started discovering plenty of items from nature, like brown leaves, orange flowers and a tree with lots of bare branches.
Once we started paying closer attention and slowing down, it became easier to notice nature. We spotted a spider sitting in the center of its web and a squirrel scurrying around a huge pile of dirt (cue The Little Explorer chasing said squirrel into hiding).
Although we kept our Halloween scavenger hunt fairly simple, it took us about 45 minutes and several blocks in our neighborhood to find everything on our list.
I love how engaged the kids became, how they made the adventure their own and how they ran right into the backyard and played for another some 30 minutes after we’d finished the scavenger hunt.
Take-Home Tips
- Practice trick-or-treating. This was a good opportunity to let The Little Explorer practice trick-or-treating (minus ringing doorbells, of course).
- Focus on finding natural objects. We found plenty of store-bought decorations, but we made sure to look for real items from nature, too, like spiders, webs, pumpkins and leaves.
5 More Ideas for Getting Outside This Week
- Carve, paint or decorate pumpkins with sticks, leaves and other natural items.
- Read a story under a favorite tree.
- Stir up a magic witch’s brew.
- Count how many orange and black natural items you can spot in your neighborhood.
- Play I Spy Crows.
Happy Exploring!
