Activities to do Indoors

Age: 6-12

Resources needed: Know Your Bears Worksheet

Activity: This activity will allow you to research and explore the differences between two bear species in BC, grizzle and black bears. Open the worksheet above, and study the difference between the two types of bears. If you were out hiking and saw a grizzly or black bear, what features might you see? Fill out the worksheet accordingly.

Ages: 12+

Resources needed: Squamish Atlas Website

Activity: Go to the Squamish Atlas Website. You can sign in without creating an account by clicking "already shared email". Start with locations that you have visited before and see if you can read and pronounce the Squamish name for that location.

Extension: Based on the meaning of the name in the atlas, does this name make sense to you? Write down why or why not.

Ages: 3-6

Resources needed: paper, pencil, colouring tools, outdoor alphabet worksheet

Activity: Print the Outdoor Alphabet Worksheet. Discover and draw 26 objects, plants or animals that can be found outside, each beginning with each letter of the alphabet. Think about the plants and animals you already know, and draw those first.

Ages: 6-12

Resources needed: Copy of Invasive Species Council of BC Youth Activity Guide

Activity: The Invasive Species Council of BC has created a guide, including a scavenger hunt that investigates invasive species in BC. To read more about invasive species and access the scavenger hunt (page 3), see the Youth Activity Guide above.

Ages: 7-14

Resources needed: a piece of cardboard, cut into a circle or a square, pencil with a fresh eraser, pin, straw, scissors, markers, construction paper

Activity: A wind vane tells you which direction the wind is coming from. Start by cutting the piece of cardboard into a circle and draw a cross on the circle with your pencil. Write N, S, E and W where the pencil line meets the edge of the cardboard. Cut a triangle out of Measure a straw 14cm thick, and with your scissors, cut a small slit in the end of the straw and place the triangle in the slit to make an arrow. Measure exactly half of the straw, and use a thumb tack to make a small hole through the straw. Attach the thumb tac to the end of an eraser. Now, bring your wind vane outside, and line up north on your wind vane to north in real life (you may need a compass for this). Watch where the arrow points. This is the direction that the wind is coming from! You may want to watch this video for visual instructions on how to make a wind vane.

Age: All

Resources needed: scissors, string, non-living natural objects such as sticks, leaves and rocks

Activity: head outside and collect twigs and leaves. Using any design you wish, or the design in this Scouts UK video, assemble a raft structure, using string, tape or creative weaving to keep the twigs together. Once your raft is complete, put it in the tub or a bucket or water to see if it floats. You can add items of varying weights (rocks you collected) onto your raft to see how much it can hold and still float!

Ages: 8-adult

Resources needed: rope, line or shoelace

Activity: The bowline knot is used to make a fixed loop at the end of a line. It is useful because once it’s taught it stays in place and is relatively easy to untie. One may use the bowline knot when putting up a tarp, for example. Watch this video for instruction on how to tie a bowline knot and then practice!

Once we have mastered a few different knots with our students, we will often challenge them in a game where there is one caller and the others who are tying the knots. The caller will say a type of knot and the first person to complete the knot correctly gets a point. You can go up to five or ten points. It would be a great activity to complete as a family!

For an extra challenge, you may want to try the one-handed method of tying a bowline knot.

Ages: 8-adult

Resources needed: rope, line or shoe lace

Activity: The trucker’s hitch knot is made of two knots, and is valuable in that it lets you keep tension on a rope without too much force on the original knot. It is a valuable knot for wanting to tension tarps, lines on a tent, or for tying down kayaks on a roof rack and is easy to untie. Watch this video for Activity on how to tie a truckers hitch knot.

Once we have mastered a few different knots with our students, we will often challenge them in a game where there is one caller and the others who are tying the knots. The caller will say a type of knot and the first person to complete the knot correctly gets a point. You can go up to five or ten points. It would be a great activity to complete as a family!

Ages: 12-adult

Resources needed: rope, line or shoe lace

Activity: After you are done working with your knots you might be wondering how to tie up a bundle of rope in a neat way. There are many ways to do this but we prefer this method. Take a bunch of rope and practice coiling rope up using this video tutorial. Practice makes perfect.