outside fun: park explorer playkits

Today you can find me on PBS Parents sharing an absolutely awesome, incredibly fun outdoor activity: Park Explorer Playkits.

Park Explorer Playkits are earth-friendly and kid-friendly, and Maddy, Owen, and Cora not only loved making these, but they love taking them to the park and doing some exploring with them.  The cool thing about these kits is that everything fits into one happy little coffee can.

• Park Explorer Playkits: You can find the skinny on PBS Parents–what you’ll need, how to make them, and how we used them.

Please head over and check it out!

We saved some coffee cans from the recycling bin. . .

. . .and added a few explorer supplies.

We added to our kits. . .

. . . made them fancy. . .

. . . and we explored, explored, and explored some more!

Which animal do these prints belong to?

And that’s it–a fun way of making some easy, inexpensive fun in  your very own backyard–Park Explorer Playkits!

Remember to please join Candace of Naturally Educational, MaryLea of Pink and Green Mama, and me for theSmart Summer Challenge, a six-week campaign where we all pledging to sneak in some sort of fun learning into our children’s summer days.

You can follow our calendarif you’d like, but you don’t have to.  You can get really crazy, but you don’t have to do that either. 

It can be simple learning–even 5 or 10 minutes a day. Anything and everything counts, and all we ask is that you link up here on Fridays and share what you’ve done (meaning: share one way you participated). Each Friday for the next six weeks, we’ll choose one participant to receive an awesome (and I mean totally worth your time awesome) prize.

Our goal is to show all parents that if we can do it, anyone can do it. And if we want our kids meet with success in school and to enjoy learning about the world around them, it’s our job to create a lifestyle of learning for our families.  Join us!