Summer Project: Nature-Inspired Keepsake Box

The end of the school year means summer adventures! It’s time to immerse children in nature, have fun outdoors, learn about the environment, and enjoy the long summer days and warm summer nights.

It’s time to let nature be your teacher: encourage your child to become a nature observer by inviting them on a mission to create a summer keepsake box! Even better, join them and closely watch the natural world — at home or while traveling — together. Explore, learn, make memories, and collect nature keepsakes.

Here’s the activity to share with your child:

Make a keepsake box by repurposing materials from home (e.g., boxes, jars, containers, or even egg cartons). Fill them up with a collection of various finds that you gather from the natural places you visit this summer. Examples of places include your backyard, nearby parks, forests, coastlines, river beaches, national parks, or anywhere outdoors! During your travels you can collect leaves, stones, pinecones, shells, nuts, moss, dried seaweed, empty snail or crab shells, and whatever other little treasures you find during your time in nature! Label these objects by noting when and where you found them.

This summer activity encourages environmental and spatial awareness, observational thinking, asking questions, research, and creativity. Exploring with intention helps kids look at various environments through different lenses, getting to know them by noticing how they compare and contrast, and observing their specific local plants, rocks, soil, mosses, animals, and other natural elements.

Have fun and don’t forget to take pictures from time to time! Share them with us by tagging @KvaroyKids on Instagram.