{adapted from the archives. This easy frugal travel game is too good not to share again}

Are you travelling with kids over the holidays? Before you jump in the car grab an egg carton, as it is all you'll need for this simple nature play activity.

Nature Sorting

Collect small natural objects like rocks, flowers, leaves, sticks, seeds, or fruits. When I'm travelling I collect the objects during a toilet or meal stop.

Place your collection in an egg carton and ask your child to sort the objects into different colours, shapes, textures or any characteristic you can think of. 

Browns....

Circles....

or a row of pink and a row of yellow...

..or dead things, living things, hairy things, smelly things, the list is endless. 

For older children you could try leaf shape or inflorescence type. 

Little eco loves this game and i'm always amazed at where our conversation goes when discussing the various natural objects. A while back I even managed to trick her into sniffing a Kangaroo poo.

More recently, she developed her own egg carton sorting game...

....collecting Kangaroo scats so that we could identify which species of Kangaroo browsed near our tent at night. (In case you're interested it was an Eastern Grey Kangaroo).

We're enjoying a staycation this Christmas. My family start arriving tonight so I'll be trying to avoid the computer till after Christmas.