Egg Carton Nature Project for Kids

An egg carton nature project is the best (and most fun) way to teach kids about the great outdoors. It’s a great learning activity to get the kids out of the classroom and outside to explore.

The theme for our first week of homeschool pre-k was nature and Fall. Fall is my favorite time to study nature because there’s so much to find with the changing of the seasons (and I won’t die in the heat).I remembered doing something similar to this when I was in elementary school and wanted to try to recreate it with my kids.

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First, Oliver painted his egg carton a nice earthy green and then let it dry overnight. The next morning, the kids and I took a field trip to the county park near our house. We brought paper bags and filled them with different things we found throughout the trails.

When we got home, they sorted all the different things they found into the separate spaces in the egg carton. We talked about the cool things they found and then researched the things we didn’t know as much about.

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Materials Needed:

• egg carton
• paint
• paint brush
• hot glue gun
• Magnifying Glass (optional)
• Natural History Book (optional)

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Directions:

1. Paint the top and inside of the egg carton and let dry overnight.
2. Decorate the top with your little’s name, and leaves from outside.
3. Take your egg carton outside and fill each of the twelve spaces with different things your kids can find in nature (ex. rocks, seeds, acorns). We used Magnifying Glasses to make it more fun and let the kids feel like they were really searching for nature treasures.
4. When all twelve spaces are filled, head back inside and plug in the hot glue gun. Glue each item into the space so it doesn’t fall out. (I still have the one I made in elementary school with everything I collected).
5. Use the Natural History book to try to look up the different items you collected and find out more about them!

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