Activities in Your Neighbourhood: 3 Fun Ways to Explore Outdoors

Children can learn a lot right in their neighbourhood. Neighbourhoods are rich with learning opportunities; helping your children to learn about community and the role they play in making their community a safe and fun place. Saying hi to your neighbour, waving to the garbage truck or going to a local park all help to shape your child’s understanding of their world. The next time you go out for a walk why not try a new way to see the world? Check out these 3 fun ways to explore your neighbourhood using paper towel rolls!

Before You Explore

Save your paper towel or toilet paper rolls for an easy craft! Decorate the paper rolls using markers, crayons, stickers (or anything you can find) and transform the paper roll into a telescope.

3 Fun Activities in Your Neighbourhood

Bring your telescope with you on your next outdoor adventure and try these fun activities right in your neighbourhood.

1. Community I-Spy

Play a game of I-Spy as you go for a walk. Ask your child what they can see as they look through their telescope! Encourage them to focus on a particular item: “Do you see the red STOP sign or the neighbour’s green van? Is there a mailbox nearby? Who’s that walking their dog across the street?” Identifying people, animals and objects in the neighbourhood helps children connect to the world around them.

2. Bird Watching

Bird watching is a great way to engage the sense of hearing. When you hear a bird, try finding where it is with your telescope. Can you see the colours of the bird or what kind of bird it is? If not, that’s ok! You can try making up a name and a story for the bird: “That’s Joey. They love to fly over the park and eat worms. And that bird is Mo – that’s Joey’s best friend– they love to sing together.” This allows children to use their imagination and develop story-telling skills while connecting with their community.

3. Neighbourhood Nature Watch

You can see nature changing through every season! Using your telescope take a look around and find buds on a tree or poking through the ground, or look for leaves that have started to fall from the trees. Look up high to the sky to see the clouds of all different shapes and sizes. Or look really low to the ground between the blades of grass to watch the ants go by.

After You Explore

Did your child enjoy exploring the neighbourhood? Here are some stories to continue exploring and learning about their community even when they can’t be outside:

The More We Get Together by Celeste Cortright is a story about the ways we can positively impact our community. Read (and sing!) along here.

Mama Built a Little Nest by Jennifer Ward shows us how a bird makes its nest. Read along here!

Little Cloud by Eric Carle is a book about clouds and the shapes they can make! Did you see any of these clouds with your telescope? Read along to this story here.