It’s well known that everyone can benefit from spending more time outdoors, especially in Oregon’s state and national forest park areas. These environments can be enjoyed year-round and provide a welcoming space for your family to retreat. Nature can be appreciated by everyone, but younger children can especially reap the rewards of being outdoors. From having fun to just getting outside and appreciating nature, it’s a good idea to have some fun forest recreation ideas in mind for your next visit.
When you visit an Oregon state forest with your family, the opportunities for fun are endless. Aside from simply walking around and taking in the beautiful surroundings, there are recreation ideas that can aid you in creating a more structured way of enjoying yourself. These ideas will help your family to take in more of their surroundings and have fun among the trees.
So find a forest near you and try out some of these family-friendly recreation ideas!
Sensory Stroll
If you’re planning on visiting a forest and going for a leisurely walk, why not make it a little more interesting? The whole family can enjoy a sensory stroll to help encourage everyone to really take in their surroundings. This activity is especially helpful for children who like to vocalize what’s going on around them, and it creates fun discussions amongst family members of all ages.
During a sensory stroll, start by discussing what things you expect to see, hear, or smell. The scent of a popular tree in the area might be something a child looks forward to smelling during the walk and will allow others to help them look for that tree when they come upon it. You can play this game while walking, but you can also pause your walk in a designated area to really focus on what’s going on around you.
Touch is probably the most exciting sense for kids. Children can begin by touching the ground around them or any trees or plants nearby. Have them describe how they feel. Is the object cold or hot, dry or wet? You can also have children close their eyes so they can get a better sense of what they’re hearing around them. With a little concentration, they may find that they hear a water source nearby or an animal that they weren’t able to see.
Take as much time as needed to go through the senses and give everyone a calming break.
Leaf Collection
Finding and collecting leaves is a great activity for the family to take part in, especially during the fall season in Oregon. It’s easy to find leaves of all shapes and colors. Once you collect your own, compare them with your family and friends to see what they found too. Grabbing a few leaves that have fallen from trees does no harm to the forest while also being a fun activity.
After collecting leaves from your local park, you can return home to create some fun leaf art with your new findings. Crayon leaf rubbing is an easy activity for young children to partake in with their leaves. Put the leaf under a blank piece of paper, then shade the hidden leaf on the opposite side. You can also paint the leaf and then press it onto a blank sheet of paper to create a leaf-filled art page. With so many different shapes and sizes of leaves in the forest, it’s easy to create a variety of unique art pieces for the whole family to enjoy.
Nature Themed Scavenger Hunt
A nature-themed scavenger hunt is a great family-friendly activity to closely explore your surroundings. There are more things hanging around in the forest than you can even imagine, and making a scavenger hunt can allow you to discover items you never knew existed.
To help encourage everyone to discover new things, keep your list of items generally vague. Instead of saying “find a rock,” you could say “find something smooth” or “rough.” Other ideas include finding something see-through, something red, something round, or something shaped like an “O.”
Finding something wet shouldn’t be too hard when visiting an Oregon forest, so you can expand on that by saying “find something wet and green.” These allow family members to get creative with their findings and help everyone to have a variety of items to share with everyone when the scavenger hunt is over.
Photo Contest
We can all agree that getting kids to take a break from using their technology can be difficult. While getting outdoors can be a great way to leave things like phones and tablets behind, sometimes, it works better to embrace their current interests and incorporate them into play. Having a family photo contest is a great way to allow everyone to take in their surroundings and use the technology they like to carry around.
Creating a theme for the trip can be a good way to narrow down when mobile devices are allowed to be used. This can be done by choosing a small area for the contest to take place, setting some general rules, and setting a time limit. This gives everyone a break from walking and can create more structure to the activity if that’s what you’re after.
If your aim is to take a break from their devices, you can still have a photo contest by purchasing a few disposable cameras to take on your trip. This can add extra excitement because they won’t know how the pictures turn out until you have them developed. You’ll also end up with a great physical representation of the time you spent together as a family.
Aside from giving children a natural place to explore and roam, forest park recreation can be a lot of fun and help them develop a love and appreciation for the outdoors that they’ll carry with them through adulthood. To learn more about the benefits of Oregon’s forests, visit Oregon Forests Forever.
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