Outdoor mindfulness activities for kids
Encourage children to relax and improve their wellbeing with various mindfulness activities. It is important to teach your pupils about self-care and ways to cope with outside stresses and anxieties they may face. To further help them with this, use outdoor spaces to practise mindfulness.
The outdoors is vital for children’s mental health and well-being as it provides critical fresh air and vitamin D, and nature often helps human brains to de-stress. To help you provide engaging and fun activities that are suitable for outside, we have created a few outdoor mindfulness activities for kids.
Use senses to take in surroundings
Encourage children to take in their surroundings via their senses. Find a safe and comfortable place to sit, lie down or stand and bask in nature and wildlife. Tell children to close their eyes and take a few deep and slow breaths to listen to their heart rate. Instruct them to tune into the nature that surrounds them using one of the senses at a time. This can be listening to the birds, touching the grass, smelling the flowers and hearing the water flow.
Make sure that children relax and let their minds drift, and when ready, gently bring them back to earth and allow them to open their eyes. Before getting up, persuade children to take in the sights and notice different colours, nature items and wildlife.
Listen to the wildlife
Take time when outdoors to encourage pupils to listen to the wildlife, such as birds singing and calling or leaves rustling in the wind. Focus on the different sounds and ask children to think about what is making that sound. They could visualise this in their head and then draw what they think it is as a relaxing activity.
Read or colour
One of the simplest outdoor mindfulness activities for kids to do is read or colour. If the weather allows, find a comfortable spot like a bench or a patch of dry grass and read or colour. Entice children to do this with their favourite book or colouring supplies.
They could read out loud or to themselves, or if colouring, they could try to spot some of their surroundings in the colouring book. Mindfulness is all about focusing on being relaxed and feeling calm, so activities like reading and colouring help children massively with this. To keep them calm, it is important to let children do this activity however they like and don’t focus on anything academic.
Try mindful earthing
Connect your pupils to the Earth and help them practise mindfulness by trying out some mindful earthing. To do this, find a place outdoors that has grass, soil or sand and tell them to remove their shoes and socks. Allow them to take a moment to feel the ground underneath their feet either standing or sitting. Prompt children to think about certain things by asking them questions such as how does the ground feel?
You can then encourage sensory play with their peers to boost their mental health and wellbeing and give them an opportunity to socialise.
Blow out dandelions
Have fun while practising mindful breathing by tasking children to blow out dandelions. Doing this helps children to calm down and enjoy the moment without thinking about any outside stresses.
Sit down on the ground and hold a dandelion in front of you. Take a deep breath through your nose and hold it for 3-4seconds. Blow out through your mouth over the dandelion and watch it break apart and float in the air. Continue this until all of the dandelion has been used.
Children can also do this without a dandelion by sparking their imaginations. They can visualise a dandelion and do the same as above. They can describe out loud what is happening to the imaginary dandelion to help them visualise it more. This allows them to do mindful breathing without realising and having fun with it.
Have a go at nature photography
Children can relax and unwind while learning a new skill in the outdoors. Let them try out photography by inspiring pupils to take pictures of the surrounding nature. Nature photography is therapeutic and helps to reduce stress and anxiety. It can immerse children into the surroundings and allow them to live in the moment and take the surroundings in.
Go cloud watching
On a fair cloudy day, head outdoors with pupils to go cloud-watching. This is a great way to calm children and can often be lots of fun too. The brain has a natural ability to turn random shapes or patterns into objects or recognisable shapes. It is also a perfect way for children to make sense of the world around them.
Lay down in a comfortable spot and invite children to spot recognisable items and shapes in the sky. They may be able to see animals, people or objects. Allow them to note down what they see or discuss with their friends what they see so that they can see these objects too.
Hunt for bugs
Why not relax by hunting for different bugs as a fun mindfulness activity? Use a bug hunting kit or our amazing bugnoculars so that children can capture all sorts of bugs and have a close up look. It’s also a great learning opportunity as children can find interesting bugs they usually wouldn’t see.
Task children to find certain bugs but don’t restrict them to this so that they can explore other bugs that they may find. When inspecting a bug ask pupils what they think it is and what habitat does it have.
Try some water play
Explore mindfulness through sensory water play which is a great calming outdoor activity. Fill up a small pool or something that can hold water and put different natural items in, such as leaves and flowers. Allow children to splash around and feel nature whilst playing. You could also use calming herbs such as lavender to further enhance the senses to help relax.
Start doing yoga
One of the best outdoor mindfulness activities for kids is learning yoga. Try out different poses in the outdoors and let children exercise while calming their minds. Yoga outdoors is perfect for children’s wellbeing as they can tune into their surroundings which helps relax them while doing simple poses that enhance this relaxation.
For some yoga pose ideas, try out our mindful kid’s yoga game. Spin the spinner to decide what pose or mindful activity to do, and children can copy it. Using this allows children to broaden their mindfulness techniques and try out different yoga poses that they haven’t done before.
Use these outdoor mindfulness activities for kids to encourage self-care and positive wellbeing. Enjoy great weather days, too whilst immersing children in nature and the world around them. Not only do these activities help relax children and boost their wellbeing but they are great opportunities to learn about the world around them. Plus, they offer chances to socialise with others and develop vital skills such as independence and communication.
For more nature fun that can also help children practise mindfulness, check out our nature crafts for kids blog.
