The natural world has a lot to teach young people, in a big wide classroom. Here are some ideas for combining fun with learning, and helping your children gain a new appreciation for the world around us.

Of course, the most important lesson about the natural world is respect. Let your children know they should leave items in their natural surroundings, and encourage them to pitch in when you’re doing the household recycling. And check your local bulletin board or community centre for upcoming nature walks or neighbourhood clean-ups that kids can join.

Outdoor Adventure: Go on a walk and see if your child can identify signs of spring in the outdoors. Is it getting warmer? What time does it get dark at night, or get light in the morning? How do these changes relate to other changes, like trees budding or flowers preparing to bloom? Grass returning? Is snow melting? How is the ice on ponds changing? Can they see fish or other creatures in the ponds? Are there  more birds, or different kinds of birds?

Soundscape: Try this one in a park or a semi-natural environment. Sit with your child, have them close their eyes and identify natural and manmade sounds. How many different sounds can they hear? You can try doing this exercise in different locations and comparing the sounds heard.

Smellscape: Dampen the underside of your child's nose, which will help their sense of smell (that’s why dog’s noses are damp.) Have them test out their dog-nose on flowers, crushed leaves, pine needles, soil and other evocative scents.

Touchscape: Blindfold your child and explore natural textures (stones, trees, garden plants), then take off the blindfold and see if they can recognize what they touched, both visually and by feel.

Scavenger hunts: Make up a list of natural items that kids can find in your yard, a nearby park or around the neighbourhood, such as pine cones, acorns, maple keys, chestnut hulls, snail shells, and feathers. Children can cooperate to finish the hunt as quickly as possible, or compete to see who can find the most items on the list. (Afterward, have them return anything living to wherever they found it.) For extra points, have them make their own lists of the animals that might use each item – for instance, a maple tree provides branches for bird nests and shade for people.

Leaf and flower press: On your next visit to the library, pick up a field guide to local flowers and trees. Then, on a nice dry day, have your child collect a bunch of interesting flowers and leaves. See if they can find each one in the field guide. Then have them place each leaf or flower between the pages of a big, heavy phone book, keeping them well spaced; if you have a second phone book handy, put it on top.

Set the phone book aside for a rainy day, a week or more later. Now your child can remove the flowers and leaves – which will now be dried and preserved – and, using a little glue, attach them to cards or paper to create beautiful notes or pictures for framing.

Weather watching: Have your child keep a notebook, recording how warm, cold, sunny, rainy or snowy each day is, and which direction the wind is blowing from. Is there a link between the wind’s direction and the kind of weather you have? Older children can create a homemade outdoor weather station, with a barometer, rain gauge, and wind vane; there are simple instructions at  weather.ca/.