DIY Summer Camp: Nature Week

Plan a full schedule of fun with these nature week ideas! Play, craft, and learn about nature in a fun DIY summer camp experience.

Explore the natural world with hands-on kids’ activities at DIY summer camp with our nature week ideas. Below we’ve put together a simple plan that’s full of indoor and outdoor fun, plus suggestions for snacks, books, and more.

Our Backyard Summer Camp ideas are ideal for kids ages 5 to 12 and easy to customize to fit your family.

Summer camp planning tips

Use our simple system to plan a summer-camp style staycation for your kids! It’s easy to organize a day, a week, or a whole summer of indoor and outdoor play ideas, easy crafts, and fun hands-on learning.

Nature week lesson plan

Indoor activities

1. Make handprint butterfly art
2. Paint rocks to look like adorable ladybugs
3. Create a pipe cleaner bee pencil topper
4. Learn how to fold origami animals
5. Make a cute frog craft

Outdoor activities

1. Start a small backyard garden
2. Collect wildflowers to make a flower crown
3. Give your plastic animal toys a bath
4. Build a bird feeder for your backyard
5. Play a backyard game like Duck, Duck, Goose or What Time is It, Mr. Fox?

Family activity

Go on a family nature walk around your neighborhood. Look for plants and animals you can identify, or ones you want to learn more about. For an extra challenge, turn it into a scavenger hunt.

Themed snack ideas

• Mix up your own trail mix with nuts, crackers, and dried fruit.
• Make ants on a log by spreading peanut butter on celery sticks. Add raisins on top.
• Enjoy a picnic of fresh berries and pretzel sticks

Books, movies, and videos

Browse our roundup of 25 Nature Books for Kids or these 15 Children’s Bug Books.

Watch Ferngully or A Bug’s Life.

The YouTube channel NatGeo Kids has tons of short documentaries about animals, including bees, penguins, and wolves. See all our favorite educational YouTube channels.

Field trip suggestions

Field trip options will depend on what’s local to you. Here are some places to look for:

• Plan a trip to a state or national park
• Visit a botanical garden
• Pack a picnic and head to your neighborhood park

More fun ideas from Backyard Summer Camp:

• 13 Easy Hedgehog Crafts
• 9 Squirrel Crafts for Kids
• 12 Snake Crafts for Kids