100 Best Nature Crafts and activities for Kids

Nature Crafts and activities are the easiest way to inspire kids. Head on outdoors and you’ll be surrounded by amazing arts and crafts materials at your fingertips – for free! These nature crafts are perfect for kids to do once they’ve been inspired on a family walk or an adventure! Take your kids on a nature walk and then use these nature crafts and activities to capture the beauty of nature on your return. These nature activites are also perfect for kids to do in the garden or any outdoor space. This is our ultimate collection of all our favourite nature crafts for kids of all ages from 2 years old to 13 years old and beyond! They’re easy to make and help the kids get creative and best of all, because they use natural elements they’re free or very cheap to make!!  These would be perfect boredom busters for camping trips too! There’s no end to the fun you can have when you engage with the natural world around you. We’re always looking for fun new things to make to keep us active, outdoors and having fun so we hope you enjoy this HUGE list of nature crafts for kids – go out, explore, collect, and make!

Follow us on instagram where we share more fun nature crafts and outdoor activity ideas for kids @thimbleandtwig.

Before we even get started on our 100 ideas – so many of our nature crafts rely on kids collecting some nature materials – so get them started with a nature scavenger hunt – click here for all of our ideas for nature scavenger hunts!

100 Nature Crafts and Activities for Kids

Nature Activities for Kids

Here’s an amazing list of nature activities for kids to do. Sometimes, you want an activity to keep kids busy for a whole afternoon or a nature activity to do on a long walk – this list is full of fun nature inspired ideas that will keep kids playing outside for longer plus it gives you a ton of ideas for nature activities for kids to do in the garden.

1. Start a Nature Journal

Nature Journalling is a great way to get kids to be more observant and look around their world a little differently. This is a great activity for arty, creative kids but there’s also a ton of nature journal prompt ideas ideas in our post for those kids who don’t love drawing. Find out here how everyone can start a Nature Journal.

2. Try Hapa Zome

Essentially Hapa Zome is bashing flowers! This is a brilliant nature activity with flowers that kids will love. Find out here how to do Hapa Zome.

3. Make a Fairy and Dinosaur Garden

Try making a fairy or dinosaur garden to keep little ones wanting to go back out and play in the garden. Small world play in the garden is a whole sensory experience for kids and they benefit a great deal from getting into character and acting out scenarios whilst using their wildest imaginations – and where best for encouraging creativity than the garden! Find some inspiration for your fairy or dinosaur garden here.

4. Leaf or Bark Rubbing

An oldie but a goldie! Leaf Rubbing is a classic children’s activity but one I often forget about. Try using metallic crayons and black paper for a different pattern.

5. Mud Explosion Experiment

One of our all time favourite nature crafts for kids has to be our exploding mud experiment. It’s a great nature science experiment so it makes a perfect home learning activity. Kids use film canisters to explode mud! So much fun!

6. Make Seed Bombs

If you want to mix a fun sensory activity for kids with a gardening activity – seed bombs are perfect! Mix some Wildflower Seeds together with some gooey sticky mud. Then leave them to dry in the sun. April-June is the best time to make seed bombs, through them into any patch of land that needs brightening up – perferably after it’s rained to ensure the seeds take the to the soil.

7. Make a Nature Boat and float it down the river

If you’re out and about on a family walk, why not try making a nature boat and floating it down the river? Kids can use their creativity and imagination to engineer a leaf boat out of nature. Check out this post for more stick craft ideas for kids!

8. Make a Windchime

Try making a windchime from flower pots!

9. Pine Cone Bird Feeder

There are so many different ways to make a bird feeder. A really easy way is to smear peanut butter over pine cones, roll in bird seed and hang in the trees for a feast for the birds!

10. Go on a Bug Hunt

Grab some little pots (these viewing pots are brilliant) and head outside to see what you can find! Find the perfect Bug Spotter Identification Sheet here.

11. Make a Rain Gauage

We certainly have enough rain here in the UK. Try making a rain guage using a plastic bottle and then with a ruler, mark out measurments using a permanent marker.

12. Orange Candle Making

Kids will be fascinated that you can make a candle without using any wax!

1. Scoop out the orange and eat but leave the middle stem behind, this is the wick.

2. Fill your orange a third of the way with olive oil.

3. Spoon the oil over the wick

4. Light the wick/ stem. This bit does take a while.

5. Enjoy your orangey smell!

13. Make a Conker Boat

A cute craft for Autumn – use a cocktail stick with a little leaf to make a conker boat and sail it down the river!

14. Make Mud Tree Faces

Mix up some squelchy mud – splatter it onto a tree and create a face using nature materials! Such a fun nature activity for kids and a great thing to do on a woodland walk – lots more ideas in this post!

15. Nature Mandala

The word mandala is a Sanskrit term that means “circle”, Nature mandalas are the simplest but the most beautiful form of nature art. Try making them with leaves, flowers, acorns, pine needles, stones, sticks or anything else you can find!

16. Make some Land Art

It’s important to make art out of nature – it reminds us all that nature is beautiful – art could be dirt, stone, sand, and sky. It could vanish in the wind or permanently alter a landscape. It didn’t need to be bought or sold – an important lesson for kids to learn that we don’t just have to value material things. Find some land art examples here.

17. Create some Beach Art

Make a mermaid, a whale or any sea creature you like using beach materials. A great activity for kids at the beach.

18. Pebble Beach Sculptures

Another fun activity for kids to do at the beach. Try balancing rocks and pebbles to make beautiful beach sculptures.

19. Mud Kitchen Potions

One of our kids favourite things to do is to make mud potions, flower soup and flower potions in the garden. We have a whole post on mud kitchens and play activities for kids to make with mud kitchens to give you lots of ideas!

20. Make a Shell Necklace

If you’re planning a trip to the beach – collect lots of shells, particulary ones with holes to make shell necklaces!

21. Nature Weaving

A perfect activity to build fine motor skills and to take on a walk to keep kids busy, you can make your own loom out of sticks or buy one here and then thread it full of nature items.

22. Create a Jam Jar Garden

Everyone loves things in minature – so try making a jam jar garden for the fairies!

23. Make a Grass Head

These are a cute nature craft that young kids will love – watch them grow and then cut their hair! Put some grass seed into the toe of an old pair of tights and the top the tights with cotton wool, securing this with an elastic band. You can draw or glue on some googly eyes. Soak the grass head, then sit it in a yoghurt pot of water.

24. Mud Painting

Mud makes a great artistic material for outdoor painting. Try add powder paints to mud to create earthy, coloured mud paint!

25. Make a Stick Maze

A great game to play in the woods is to make a stick maze!

26. Make a Nature Bracelet

Stick sellotape sticky side upwards on your child to make a bracelet – as you go for a walk, they can collect fun nature items and stick them to the sticky tape to make a pretty nature bracelet to admire!

27. Make a Charcoal Pencil

One for kids to make with a grown up but a great thing to do after you’ve had a campfire. File a point on a stick and wrap in tin foil and place in the fire embers (not flames.) This is one of the crafts in our HOME LEARNING NATURE PACK – find it in our Etsy Store.

28. Collect a Rainbow Flower Collage

A lovely spring time nature craft for kids – collect all the colours of the rainbow in petals and make your very own nature rainbow.

Nature Crafts for Kids

Do your kids come home with their pockets brimming with nature items? These are great nature crafts for kids to make to put those nature bits and bobs to good use! There are’s also plenty of ideas for bringing the outside in and using nature at home as well as brilliant nature crafts for rainy days too!

29. Nature Story Art

Go on a walk and collect nature items – when you return home, make some stories using the items you collected! This nature craft is flexible and is a good craft for kids of different ages so it makes a good one for forest school or outdoor education for EYFS outdoor literacy topics.

30. Rock Painting

Collect some rocks on your travels and paint them on your return. Try to use acrylic paint and spray varnish them afterwards if you want them to be weatherproof. Or you could choose chalk pens to decorate. You can turn your rocks in ladybirds, bugs or even lions. See our pinterest board for inspiration!

31. Nature Crown

Nature crowns can be made out of anything – there are so many different variations – try fern, leaves, berries – anything goes!

32. Nature Hot Air Balloon

This nature craft has it all! It combines showcasing your beautiful nature crafts with learning to tie a knot! Download the instructions for FREE here.

33. Bark Owls

Bark Owls are easy to make with some bark and acorn cups to create cute nature owls! Collect bark, twigs, acorns and seeds to make this stunning animal nature craft.

34. Pine Cone Fairies

Cute Fairy Pine Cone craft that kids will love to make!

Flower Crafts for Kids

What’s more beautiful in the world then flowers! You can find loads more of our favourite flower nature crafts for kids.

35. Gelatine Flower Sun-catcher

36. Flower Keyrings

37. Pressed Flower Pebbles

Try using a flower press to create these most beautiful pebbles. Press your flowers then attached them carefully with glue to your pebbles. Cover with varnish to secure the petals.

38. Imprint Nature Clay

This is simple nature craft activity for preschoolers that can be done outside as part of your nature walk. Take some clay with you and create imprints by pressing nature items into your clay! Try acorns, leaves and pine cones! Here are our other good tips and tricks for things to take on a nature walk with kids.

Leaf Crafts for Kids

Leaves have got to be the most versatile material to craft with – they are cheap and easy to find in all seasons and with different colours and shapes – there are so many things kids can make with leaves. Try these ideas below or our ideas for crafts and activities for kids to make with leaves.

39. Leaf Butterfly

Paint leaves to look like beautiful butterfly wings!

40. Salad Spinner Leaf Art

This has to be one of our really fun nature crafts that also works well for older kids. Find out how to create salad spinner Leaf Craft to make stunning Art with leaves!

41. Leaf Lantern

Autumn leaf lanterns are perfect to make for a torchlit walk. Kids love a walk around their neighbourhood in the evening – and a lantern makes the walk even more magical!

42. Magic Leaf Rubbing

Did you know you can use leaves to create magic messages for friends? Find out how along with other kid’s leaf crafts in our 7 Easy Leaf Craft for Kids!

43. Leaf Chromatography

Want to learn more about the chromatography of leaves? Try this fun nature science experiment for school aged kids.

44. Leaf Art Bugs

Learn the anatomy of bugs by making the insect parts out of leaves! This is a great outdoor school leaf learning activity for kids. If your kids love the book, you could also make a stick man as shown in this post.

45. Leaf Skeleton Paint Printing

Aren’t leaf skeletons beautiful? I love to find them in the woods during Autumn and Winter. Have fun with kids by seeing who can collect the most leaf skeletons on a nature walk and then bring them home to print with. They are delicate so you’ll have to be careful dabbing the paint on (try using a sponge) but they make the most beautiful prints that are great for kids cards.

Stick Crafts for Kids

Check out this post for all our stick crafts for kids!

46. Stick Wands

There are loads of nature crafts you can make with sticks! What kid doesn’t like a wand? Try adding beads, feathers or gorgeous coloured leaves for some real fairy power!

47. Make a Stick Dragonfly

All you need is some sycamore seeds (or helicopter seeds as we call them) and sticks to make these gorgeous stick dragonflies! Try painting the seeds with some metallic paint to bring out the colours of real dragonflies.

48. Stick and Pine Cone Mobile

Sticks and pine cones can be really beautiful – who would have thought? Try making this gorgeous stick and pine cone mobile by wrapping colourful wool round some sticks and painting your pine cones. It can be hung in a window to catch the light – so pretty!

49. Twig Decoration

Who says twigs can’t be beautiful? Try these beautiful and easy twig stars to make.

50. Stick Spiderweb

Making a stick spiderweb is a great nature craft for introducing weaving. You can use conkers if you’re in Autumn or Fall or a lump of play dough in the middle if they’re are no conkers around.

Nature Crafts for Spring

51. Easter Nature Wreath

52. Build a Bird’s Nest

Try collecting sticks, moss, feathers and make a bird’s nest – more Spring Sensory play activities for preschoolers.

53. Egg Shell Mosaic

Egg shells are a great natural material to paint on! Have fun smashing them once you’ve eaten your boiled egg (or dippy eggs as my kids call them!) paint them and then create a mosaic! A pasta mosaic is another fun and cheap craft to try!

54. Petal Suncatcher

When petals are just starting to fall on the ground in late Spring, collect some beauties and glue them to some white tissue paper – hang them in the sunlight to show the display the colour of the beautiful petals.

Nature Crafts for Summer

55. Make a Butterfly Feeder

Butterflies have to be my kid’s favourite thing to spot in the garden. To make an easy one to attract more butterflies to your garden – soak some cotton pads in watered down sugar and add them to a mini jam jar. Hang in a flowery plant to attract butterflies.

56. Berry Painting

What kid would not love a nature craft they can eat? Go on a walk, pick some berries, give them a squish and then create some pretty berry paintings! Berry juice makes a pretty, translucent paint, similar to watercolours – it’s fun for little hands. Be sure to only use berries that are safe to eat and don’t keep painting for too long as the berry juice can stain your fingers.

57. Stick Coffee Filter Butterflies

58. Sun Printing

Try this amazing sun print paper! Create beautiful effects with leaves and other nature items on a sunny day! This is one of the crafts in our HOME LEARNING NATURE PACK – find it in our Etsy Store.

59. Make a Beehive

Bees are great for your garden to pollinate the plants you grow. If you want to encourage bees to your garden than a simple flowerpot beehive is a great way to make them feel welcome! All you need is a flowerpot with some corrugated cardboard rolled into tubes placed inside, then add some hay between the tubes. Make sure you pack the tubes tightly and ensure no cardboard is hanging out the edge so the hive is protected from rain.

Nature Crafts for Autumn

60. No Carve Pumpkin Ideas

61. Autumn Leaf People

62. Pumpkin Potions

63. Leaf Hedgehogs

Making leaf hedgehogs is a gorgeous Autumn craft for preschoolers and toddlers – collect leaves with pointy edges to make your leaf hedgehog.

64. Acorn People

Clay, acorns and a little imagination is all you need to make these cute acorn nature crafts!

65. Autumn Leaf Suncatchers

Autumn brings some wonderful colours with it, take some inspiration from the outdoors by using autumn leaves to make a sun catcher. Collect some beautiful autumn leaves and flatten them under some heavy books or a flower press. Once flat, glue them to some baking paper and hang in the sunshine to watch the colours dazzle.

66. Conker Hedgehogs; 67. Conker Noughts and Crosses

There are so many brilliant nature crafts you can make with conkers, our conker hedgehogs make very cute, low maintenance pets and noughts and crosses makes a great outdoors game for kids during the Autumn.

68. Wax Leaf Garland

Preserve the stunning colours of your Autumn walk by making a wax leaf garland – find out how at Sprouting Wild Ones.

Nature Crafts for Winter

69. Rain Painting

Wondering what to do with kids in the rain? Try RAIN PAINTING for a fun rainy day kid’s activity.

70. Ice Suncatchers

Ice Suncatchers are one of the most beautiful nature crafts you can make for Winter. Try freezing ice overnight in tins and different shape containers and add berries, nature items and evergreens to make a beautiful ice display. Read for more Winter Outdoor Nature Activities.

71. Ice Sculptures

Try freezing coloured ice and kids can use them as outdoor building blocks – you can even play hide and seek with them as an Ice Scavenger Hunt.

72. Ice Lanterns

Make these beautiful ice lanterns from balloons……

73. Nature Christmas Decorations

Bring the outside in at Christmas by using nature items to create beautiful decorations. Try these Pine Cone Nature decorations or Orange Star Slices or Nature Filled Baubles.

74. Make Snow Animals

Bored of making a snowman? All you need is snow and nature items to make these stunning snow animals.

Nature Crafts for preschoolers

75. Nature Playdough for preschoolers

Combine nature items and play dough for hours of fun! Toddlers will love making nature imprints in the play dough and you can combine with small world parts for longer play.

76. Flower Ice Play

Perfect for a hot day outdoor activity or for getting outdoors in winter too! Freeze flowers in ice and try to freeze them using salt or warm water!

77. Cardboard Shape Flowers

A simple, easy outdoor activity that you can take with you on a family walk with kids. Simply punch some holes in a pattern (or shape if your preschooler is learning their shapes) into an old cereal box or some cardboard. As you go on your walk – your kids can fill the holes with nature finds! We have lots more ideas of how to make a family walk fun with kids!

78. Cut the Grass with Scissors

The most simple nature craft for toddlers and preschoolers that encourages fine motor development! Kids love to cut the grass!

79. Play Mini Flower Shops

Our kids love this simple outdoor garden activity. Give them some old flowers or dried flowers, encourage them to collect leaves and grass and oozy mud. With small pots or these cute mini flowerpots – they can create their own flower shop!

80. Autumn Sensory Activities

81. Pine Cone Painting

Paint a pine cone – they’re surprisingly fun to paint – you can have a multi-coloured one or even add glitter!

82. Nature Paintbrushes

Get outside, go on a nature walk, collect lots of interesting pieces of nature and then have fun painting with them! A great nature craft for toddlers – they will love experimenting with nature and paint to see what different textures and marks they can make!

83. Write your name in Nature

If you have a preschooler learning their name – make it fun by taking them outside to create their name in nature! We have more outdoor learning activities for preschoolers and kids here.

84. Nature Art Frames

Nature art frames are really simple to make, fun to play with and create some wonderful images. They’re a great idea to take and about with you on a walk.

Cut out your shape or picture and take the frame outdoors and hold it against any interesting natural things you can see, like trees the sky, flowers or grass for example.

85. Nasturtium Cookies

Flowers you can actually eat! Kids love baking and they’ll love cooking with flowers – they also look really pretty on a plate, perfect for an outdoor picnic with friends. Here’s the Flower Cookie Recipe.

86. Pine Needle Cone Cookies

You’ll never look at a Christmas Tree in the same way again! If you’re wondering what to do with your Christmas Tree – you could always try eating it! Use pine needles to make a fun nature baking activity for toddlers – the trick is to ensure the pine needles don’t sit on top of the dough, otherwise they get too chewy! Here’s the pine needle cookies recipe!

87. Ice Scavenger Hunt

88. Flower Soup

Use old petals that have fallen on the floor – set up some old bowls in different sizes filled with water – and watch the kids excitement as they mix flower soup or make rose petal potions. Check out our other Outdoor Garden potion ideas.

89. Nature Ooblek

Oobleck is great sensory fun for children of all ages. All you need to make it is cornflour and water but you can also add other textures and scents such as flower petals, pine needles, ferns and other natural materials. Oobleck behaves like a liquid when its being poured, but when you push or squeeze it becomes temporarily solid which makes it great fun to play with!

Nature Crafts for Older Kids

90. Citrus Peel Garland

A better nature craft for older kids because it can be a bit fiddly. Eat an orange (or satsumas work well) and cut little shapes with a sharp knife or shape cutter out of the peel. Thread onto string to make a garland!

91. Rose Petal Bath Bombs

92. Make Dandelion Honey

Who knew you could make dandelion honey? This is a great nature craft for older kids who love to make something productive outdoors. Find the recipe here.

93. Make a Snail Reserve

Raid your recycling bin to make a fun home for your snails – be sure to give them lots of greenery and leaves.

94. Have a Snail Race

A great outdoor activity for kids of all ages – grab your snails, give them names and RACE THEM! **Download your FREE Snail racing Kit here**

95. Botanical Dyes

A more technical nature craft that’s perfect for older kids – use natural elements to dye cloth with. Try boiling beetroot or onion or turmeric, blueberries or spinach to make your own natural dyes for cloth.

96. Nature Photo Scavenger Hunt

A great way to get older kids outdoors is to send them on a photo scavenger hunt – you can find an example of photo scavenger hunts in our post on 33 Ideas to keep kids entertained on a long walk.

97. Seed Paper Hearts

You can make these in heart shapes or any shape really! This is a combination of the eco-friendly craft of making paper and then making plantable seed paper

98. Nature Perfume

I don’t know any kids who didn’t like making flower perfume when they were small. So this is just an advanced form of garden potion making. Try making flower perfume.

99. Painted Feathers

Feather are beautiful in their own right but try painting them to make some stunning artwork.

100. Shell Fairies

We’ve saved a special nature craft right till the end. This is a perfect activity for the beach but would also make a lovely addition to a fairy garden or as a garden mosaic. Collect shells of all different sizes and shapes and make beautiful fairy nature sculptures.

If you made it to the end of our epic nature craft list – well done! We hope this is a useful list for all eventualities – whether you’re a teacher and need a nature craft for your classroom or just want some quick ideas to keep kids busy in the garden, there’s nature crafts here for older kids as well as toddler too! Happy adventuring and exploring and spending time in nature!