Easy Nature Crafts for Kids to do all Year Round
Time for some beautiful Nature Crafts. These Nature crafts will naturally have a bias towards summer on autumn, but can be made all year around. Here are some great craft ideas focussing on natural materials.
Respect Nature
The key to nature crafting, is to remain respectful to your environment. I do believe it is important for children to engage with nature, but also to respect. So when you are “collecting” nature finds, don’t damage plants (try and take what has fallen already), and if you do pick – e.g. pick flowers – only take a handful hear or there and only were it is plentiful.
When we are “done” with our nature craft – I do also like to make sure recycle all the nature elements appropriately – i.e. remove all natural materials and put those in the composter and dispose of any man made elements responsibly.
Should we work with sea shells and rocks?
Since writing this article, I am in two minds about how I feel about shells, as well as rocks from the beach. Rocks you – can now often purchase in a garden centre. But shells still provide me with a quanadrum. Maybe enjoy them (e.g. for loose parts Nature Art, and then put them back? or maybe replace the shells with sea glass? Technically sea glass is human waste! So you should be fine to collect it!
This Nature Crafts round up, was inspired by our super popular Kids Crafts 101 – 14 “Every Day Crafts using Every Day Items”. Your response and feedback was so positive that we thought you would enjoy our 20 Nature Craft Ideas. Remember, you can join in with the creative story on both Twitter and Instagram, by using the #KidsCrafts101 hashtag too!
Nature Inspired Crafts for Kids
Let’s take a look at these easy craft ideas with nature!
One of my favourite Nature Activities of all times – building nature fairy houses! I love these, as you can make this easy craft, any time, any place, with any materials to hand. It encourages imagination and building skills. Children should only use things they find (don’t damage anything) and you can leave it “behind” for natrue fairies to find. Who needs toys, when you have a nature fairy house?! No pollution. No destruction.
Similarly, we love these Beach Finds Art activity. This has helped while away many a creative hour, when sheltering from the sun. At the end of your creative session, grab the sea glass and leave the rest behind for nature.
Both the Beach Art and the Fairy houses we have made many times over the years!
Combine nature finds, with recycling to make this super simple Bug Hotel! I love that these insect hotels will customised to YOUR area, simply because you add items from what you can find locally! Great for fine motor skills too and wonderfully fun for observing bugs later.
Broken Shell & Stick Rattle – a simple activity using yarn, driftwood and shells (no hot glue or anything needed, as the yarn is knotted on). I fyou look closely, you will see that we used an elastic band to string up the shells. This means, you can easily leave the shells behind on the beach when you are done. You can replace the shells with buttons and plastic bottle tops once home!
Sea shell Windchime – we ADORE making these shell windchimes. But I confess, I am not sure we will make this again, because of the impact on sea life by taking the shells. Eep. Look below for our autumn mobile for an alternative.
Learn how to make a journey stick! This is a wonderful way to interact with nature when going on a walk with the kids in the park.
First up we have the lovely Craft Train with this fantastic Gum Nut craft – turn leaves into sun catchers come dream catcher. Who needs pom poms when you have adorable gum nuts (or use mini pine cones if you live in a different part of the world). So pretty!
The Craft Train’s second Nature Craft to inspire you are these cute and simple ROCK CHICKS. Adorable. These days, I would probably avoid the googly eyes and either paint or draw on some eyes or stick on paper ones!
Meri Cherry’s Nature Stick Painting! Be sure to use natural paints and dyes for this lovely craft, so that the sticks and easily be composted once you are done with them. Only use eco friendly glitter for the same eason.
Nature Soup Making – pretend play with Nature Finds – no complicated instructions needed for this one! A lovely sensory experience for young children and toddlers. My daughter used to LOVE playing with flowers in this way when she was little (Granny, would pick the almost “gone” flowers for her form her garden. So magical).
Willowdaygram shares a stunning Nature Flower Wreath how to. As mentioned before, only pick flowers that are plentiful and leave enough for the birds and the bees. No sew, no glew! Just an easy craft for a beginner!
She also has these super fun “deer head” decorations – Stick Dear Heads – perfect for Autumn crafting don’t you think? You can use a block of wood or some cardboard to design the background. Very sweet!
Wonderful stone and shell pendants from Pink Stripey Socks – as mentioned, I would focus on the sea glass and rocks when making this craft!
6 Fun Flower Activities also from the lovely Pink Stripey Socks!
Wonderful Nature Bookmarks from Buggy and Buddy! These bookmarks would make great gifts too, don’t you think? Take your pressed flowers, a little cardboard, a pair of scissors and twine and get started! You could add some beads to your tassles too if you wish.
Make fantastic Sun Catchers from nature and upcycled CD cases with Inner Child Fun’s Nature Craft! A nice easy DIY for kids that looks oh so pretty. Maybe give these ago using some white tissue paper?
Outdoor Colour Match Game – a super fun and cute way to explore Nature for sure! And a great way to not damage or take anything from nature.
Bark Painting with Tinkerlab – a super easy craft project to explore doodling and creativity. Try different art supplies and see how they work best.. can you use crayons and pencils? What marks do they make?
Leaf Critters (so cute!). You could mod podge these to preserve them at the end/
Puffy Paint Rocks from Babble Dabble Do. These little rocks would make lovely gift ideas
And an AWESOME Insect Hotel – check out this step-by-step tutorial!
Or as mentioned previously – Here is a simple Bug Hotel if you need an easier one! A great one for little crafters. Easy peasy!
Beautiful Woodland Dream Catcher – take a peak at the full tutorial for this one!
Check out this wonderfully fun Stick Crown! Fabulous.
I do hope you have enjoyed our Nature Craft series! We love getting closer to nature, seeing what we can find. Feeling the textures and getting crafting. Hopefully this list of 20 beautiful Nature Crafts are enough inspiration for you to have a go.
If you are looking for even MORE Nature Crafts, we have a whole section to explore.
We also have some great Nature Play ideas – just nature and NOTHING else needed!