Inspire curiosity and encourage outdoor explorations with a Color Wheel Nature Hunt! The perfect activity for a sunny autumn day, the Color Wheel Nature Hunt encourages children to put their critical thinking skills and adventurous spirits to work as they hunt for colorful plants and natural loose parts and match the objects in their new collection to the colors on their color wheel.
Children will love discovering new plants and outdoor treasures as they utilize STEM skills to gather, observe, and sort their findings. Interactive and engaging, the Color Wheel Nature Hunt allows children to unlock endless learning possibilities through outdoor play!
See below to download our FREE printable!
What Is A Color Wheel Nature Hunt?
How often do you take learning outside? The Color Wheel Nature Hunt is an engaging and interactive outdoor activity that stimulates young learners' curiosity while encouraging creativity and teamwork! A refreshing break from indoor learning, this activity allows children to explore their natural surroundings and collect colorful treasures they'll love matching to the rainbow of colors on their color wheels. Allowing children the chance to get out excess energy, collaborate with their classmates, and collect and sort natural treasures, the Color Wheel Nature Hunt is an interdisciplinary outdoor activity that supports playful learning!
Why Is Outdoor Learning Important?
Outdoor learning is an ideal way to shed classroom expectations and introduce children to their world through a unique lens and fresh perspective. When we take children outside, we introduce them to a space where free thinking and symbolic play offers them a portal into their imaginations. The outdoors provides the perfect interdisciplinary environment for early learning where, for example, children can collaborate with one another and utilize STEM skills as they explore nature, all while building their emotional intelligence, and thinking creatively!
The Color Wheel Nature Hunt intentionally incorporates natural loose parts, along with basic learning materials, to inspire and empower children to investigate their surroundings and discover new learning possibilities through exploratory play. Encouraging the innate sense of wonder and curiosity found in outdoor play will facilitate a child's lifelong love of learning and establish a strong foundation for future explorations.
How Can I Use This In My Lesson Plan?
The Color Wheel Nature Hunt is the perfect activity to incorporate into your outdoor lessons, with endless opportunities for expansion and learning, this activity has everything! Take a step back and encourage open-ended exploration as your students work together to find and sort their new treasures by treasures. Watch as your students build strong community bonds as they discover the fun of outdoor adventures.
With the seasons changing and leaves falling, this activity is a great way to reinforce lessons about fall colors and bring new science concepts to life. It's also a great way to incorporate mindfulness into your outdoor lessons. As children explore their outdoor surroundings, encourage them to take a quiet moment to absorb the environment, notice the plants, objects, and insects they're collecting, and appreciate this peaceful moment in their day. There's more than just collecting, sorting, and matching to do in this activity!
Download our FREE printable below!
Required Materials
- Paper Plate
- Clothes Pins
- Simple Color Wheel
- Natural loose parts'plants
1Gather Your Materials
Before heading outside, help children create their color wheels by gluing a simple color wheel to a paper plate. Give each child clothes pins they can use to hold their nature treasures once they collect them! Teacher Tip: Print out your color wheels beforehand, or extend this activity to include creating a simple color wheel by gluing various colors of construction paper to your plates.
2Head Outside!
Take your students outside and encourage children to explore their natural environment! They'll love discovering colorful plants and natural loose parts they can attach to their color wheels with the clothes pins you provided. Encourage them to work as a team to find an object that matches each color on the wheel, or allow them to hunt at their own pace in this open-ended activity.
Fall into learning with fun seasonal activities and experiments! Browse our selection of related seasonal resources to encourage autumn explorations and incorporate engaging activities into your classroom.
