Spending time with your family and kids is probably the most beautiful thing you can ever do for them. Nowadays, some people only spend time with their family on rare occasions due to their hectic lives and busy schedules. While you can still stay in touch with them through text or phone calls, nothing beats the beauty of hanging out with your family in one place, under the sun, and doing fun activities together.
One way to bond with your family is by doing outdoor activities together. Spending time outdoors brings countless benefits, such as improving your physical health, boosting your mood, reducing stress, strengthening your family connections, and, of course, creating lifelong memories. So, if you’re searching for creative ways to spend quality time with your family, here’s a list of ten outdoor activities you can do and enjoy together:
Enjoy Stargazing
Instead of letting the night pass while scrolling through your phones, invite your family, and especially your kids, outdoors for stargazing. This outdoor activity is also a perfect way to get kids started with astronomy and let their curious minds dig deeper about the moon, stars, comets, and planets.
For starters, you can utilize your backyard, and set up a few blankets and pillows on the ground where everyone can lay on their backs and enjoy the night sky. It’s also better if you have some stargazing equipment with you, like telescope, red flashlight, etc.
Once the entire family has become fonder of this outdoor activity, you can do it somewhere further, such as on top of the mountains, on the seashore, or anywhere where you can clearly catch the meteor shower. To make this educational, you can also teach the kids about the stars and let them point out different constellations.
Ride A Bike
If you’re looking for an outdoor activity that’s a bit more physically challenging, take everyone out and wheel around on your bikes. You can start by exploring around the neighborhood and observing if everyone is comfortable with their bike. Make sure to make necessary adjustments in case their bikes are in the wrong size. Moreover, always check if everyone is wearing their safety gear, like helmets, knee pads, and sports shoes.
Once you get used to this, you can step up your biking experience by going mountain biking.
Take A Hike
Meanwhile, if biking seems too much for them, especially if you still have small kids, you can make the activity easier by going hiking instead. The difficulty level of this activity must depend on everyone’s hiking abilities, especially the kids. To be on the safe side, you can start by strolling on a local trail and choosing a flat terrain.
If everyone’s ready for more challenge, increase the length and distance of your trail, as well as the height of the go-to place (e.g., hills, mountains). While hiking, remind everyone to pause for a moment to see and appreciate the scenic nature view. You can also go nature sightseeing and see with binoculars. Most importantly, don’t forget to pack nutritious snacks and plenty of water enough for everybody.
Visit A Nearby Lake Or Pond
You can also do so many fun things on the water. For instance, take your family out on a nearby lake or pond, and go fishing. This can be a perfect opportunity for your kids to know more about fish, and teach them how to catch and release fish. If you want to do something that involves getting into the water, you can bring your paddleboards or rent some kayaks and canoes, and explore the area together.
A Beach Day
Heading to the beach will always be a fun and exciting activity for every family member; it’s also suitable for people of all ages.
There are so many great outdoor activities that you can do together as a family. Besides swimming and lying on the sand, you can also go surfing, jet skiing, building sandcastles, playing beach games, like volleyball or Frisbee, and taking long walks.
If the property permits, you can even camp the night out on the sand, set up your tents, and build campfires. However, make sure you get permits first to avoid problems along the way.
Picnic At The Park
One of the classic activities that are still great for families is a picnic at the park. This is also one of the easiest activities to plan. You can shop together so you can all choose which nutritious snacks or meals should be brought during your upcoming picnic. As the day comes, make sure to bring a few blankets, some pillows if you want to, and your sunglasses for the fine, sunny weather. The idea of eating and lounging outside will surely get everyone excited; plus, a bit of sun exposure can boost your mood, too.
Sidewalk Art
Another fun and educational activity for the family and kids is creating art on your sidewalks or driveway. Just grab a box of colored sidewalk chalk and let each member create their own masterpiece. Sidewalk art will be an unconventional outdoor design that’ll surely attract your neighbors’ attention.
You can draw gameboards, meaningful pictures, hopscotch, murals, or write alphabets for your kids. You can even host a fun and mini-sidewalk chalk competition wherein everyone needs to compete who can make the silliest picture.
Water Balloon Or Water Gun Fight
If you’re looking for an activity to cool yourselves during the heat of the summer, prepare some balloons, fill them with water, and initiate a water balloon fight in your backyard. Playing water balloon fight is a creative way to wet and refresh yourselves from the sun’s heat. Besides water balloons, you can also use water guns for the play. To boost things up, divide your family into two teams and fight on which team will be the most soaked.
Fruit-Picking
This activity fits during the fall, summer, and spring, wherein various fruits are in full bloom and ready for picking. If you have your trees and plants in the backyard, you may grab your fruit baskets and go fruit-picking together as a family. Meanwhile, for a superb experience, you can visit a local farm during the summer or spring, and pick some tasty fruits (e.g., strawberries, apples, blueberries). If you want to do a similar activity during the winter, consider picking a Christmas tree together.
Camping, Campfire, And Stories
Another exciting day-and-night activity to enjoy with your family is going camping! For starters, you can camp out in your backyard first to introduce your kids to what it feels like to go camping and what they should expect. After a few nights of backyard camping, you can camp somewhere else, like on a campground or in the mountains. Of course, the camping experience wouldn’t be complete without building a campfire and some stories, while huddling around the fire.
Takeaway
The options are limitless when it comes to brainstorming for outdoor family activities. Whether you have a large family or a small one, these outdoor activities on the list will surely be a perfect way to bond together and create memories with your kids, which they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.