And watch their observational skills soar!
In this day and age of digital madness it's so hard to get kids outside, engaging with the natural world around them.
But add in a little piece of technology and they might just be immersed for hours!
Give them a camera so they can record what they observe.
We recently spent some time on a local island and whilst they had to share the one spare camera we have, all three kids got into some serious nature photography.
They spent an incredible amount of time wandering, engaged, observing and capturing what they saw.
My teen is teaching himself the manual settings, with a few pointers from mum and dad, when he asks. The younger two are content with the automatic setting.
I have so many images to sort through and those are the ones just from the kids. Far too many to share them all with you, but here's a few.
The following four images were taken by our 15 year old.
Love how my teen captured this. Starfish were everywhere on low tide, along the shoreline and they look fabulous in the sunset.
So ok, not exactly a nature shot but playing around with the light and his little brother during a glorious Moreton Island sunset.
You can't visit Moreton and not watch the sun set over the famous wrecks.
He was even lucky enough to capture this guy whilst we were out on the water.
The next five images were taken by my 12 year old.
She was enraptured with the starfish. There are several images of them taken by her.
Playing around with her little brother. She had my camera for this one.
Of course the obligatory, toes with a starfish photo simply must make an appearance.
These guys get battered around by the surf and many of them get flipped from crashing waves. Their undersides though are mesmerising to look at it.
She also managed to snap the only crab photo of the entire trip!
Our 8 year old barely went anywhere without the camera hanging from his neck. Consequently I now have a plethora of images that he took. The following nine are all from him.
We were so lucky to pass by a pod of dolphins on our way over to the island. They were quick and he was lucky to even grab this shot.
This sunset he snapped directly out in front of our villa. What a beauty!
Behind us was a smallish tropical rainforest inspired garden, which he spent a bit of time in.
This little guy sat and posed for him for ages.
And because everyone else was doing it, he thought he should too!
Once again there are heaps of starfish photo's, but I particularly like this one.
A view through the glass bottom boat.
This little guy was found sitting in the trees just out the front of our room.
Taking these truly helped each of them to observe so much more than if they would have done by simply walking around. I hope to get some of these added to our hand drawn nature journals soon.
If you would like to see more of what we got up to on the island please follow along with our family adventure blog.
Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie
