Nature Gifts for Kids who Love Animals and the Outdoors

Do you know a child who loves nature? My boys love wild animals, bugs and playing with sticks! I've put together this collection of nature gifts for kids to give you some great ideas for birthday and Christmas gifts for young naturalists. 

These gifts are also good for kids who need a bit of encouragement to get connected to nature. Perhaps they live in a city apartment? An appreciation for nature is worth nurturing. 

You'll find nature gifts for preschoolers and younger children first and then gifts for older children. 

My boys got to watch butterflies grow in one of these live butterfly gardens last summer with their childminder. You send a coupon off for your live caterpillars and then feed them and watch them grow. 

What a brilliant idea. I think the parents enjoyed seeing the progress almost as much as the children as we visited each day. We even popped round on a weekend when the first butterfly was hatching. 

My then 4.5 year old spent ages carefully drawing the lifecycle of the butterfly, and my just 3 year old could tell you how an egg hatched into a caterpillar, ate lots of leaves, turned into a cocoon and then emerged as a butterfly. 

An explorer vest is a great gift for a boy or girl who enjoys getting outdoors or even just pretending to be a naturalist indoors. 

My boys spend hours pretending to be Nigel Marven, discovering a new species! They also love to wear a cargo vest when we go for a walk in the woods or just playing in the backyard. 

This Backyard Safari vest is designed for kids aged 4+ and has lots of pockets and loops to carry an explorer's accessories. 

You can also get lots of matching accessories like a magnifying glass and field tools which clip on to the vest. 

The microscope is an important tool for a naturalist. This Educational Insights Geosafari Talking Microscope makes a great first microscope for little kids.

The microscope comes with 12 prepared slides that can be used with the talking microscope feature. The microscope teachs the kids lots of fun facts and also has a quiz mode to test what has been learned.

Note that this is a fun educational toy for little kids. Older kids will want a more grown-up microscope. 

Requires three C batteries (not included)

This Nature Series: Science on a Tracking Expedition is a hands-on kit for learning about tracking animals. Kids will learn to recognise animal prints and other tracking signs.

Children can cast eight realistic animal tracks using the included footprint molds and materials. 

You also get a large educational animal tracks poster and an animals tracks game with cards. 

There's lots here to get kids learning about animal tracks in a way that they'll remember. They'll have fun using their new knowledge when they spot tracks outdoors. 

This Toysmith Build and Paint a Birdhouse kit allows kids to assemble a wooden birdhouse (nothing too complicated required) and then decorate it with the included paints.

The result is a real birdhouse that you can put in the garden and attract real birds to nest in. The paints are suitable for outdoors.

I like this nature gift because it has a long lifespan. The craft activity is lots of fun and then kids will be really interested in the birds in their backyard.

This Playmobil Wildlife Care Station allows kids to role play being a Safari ranger and looking after wild animals and returning them to the wild.

My boys love Playmobil. It's very well made, full of little details and packed with accessories. 

This is a great toy for kids who are fascinated by wild animals and interested in endangered species. 

This DVD features cartoon versions of real-life zoologists Chris and Martin Kratt.

The Wild Kratts take kids on a journey to get close to animals and learn lots about nature and science along the way.

The DVD is 270 minutes long and features episodes of the Wild Kratts TV show. Kids who are interested in animals will love watching this DVD over and over. 

The Backyard Safari net will let kids pretend to hide in the woods and keep really quiet so they can spot wild animals without disturbing them. 

My older son is fascinated by the idea of camouflage and I've got him a camouflage net for his next birthday so he can create dens and pretend to be a wildlife expert like the ones he sees on the TV. 

Ths Backyard Safari Camouflage Net is designed for kids and can be used indoors and outdoors to create dens and hides for watching real animals or pretending you can see a lion in your backyard. 

What a clever idea! This Wooden Nature Collage Art Frame allows kids to create collages from things they find outdoors. 

Whenever we leave the house we come back with leaves, sticks, pine cones, bits of bark, feathers and all manner of other bits of nature. 

I keep thinking we should do craft activities with them. This frame is such a good idea. Kids will be able to display all their finds and create a lovely seasonal display. 

A very unusual gift that's eco-friendly too. The string is natural colored and made from hemp. 

This gift works for a wide range of ages - I can imagine a lot of adults enjoying it too!

It's this frog gorgeous? He's a realistic frog anatomy model with 31 detachable organs and body parts that can be taken out, examined and put back together. 

The set includes an assembly guide with lots of educational information about frog anatomy. 

This is a really hand-on way to learn about anatomy without harming any real frogs. 

This makes a great gift for kids who are interested in biology or becoming a vet, doctor or naturalist. 

The frog comes with a display platform so he can be admired when he's not in use. 

This Rugged Terra Kids Knack of Knots kit for young explorers will get kids having fun outside. 

You get a pair of working binoculars for looking at wildlife and a the materials and instructions for learning to tie knots. 

Being able to tie knots suitable for different purposes is a great skill for an explorer to have. 

If you can tie good knots then you can use your skills to create a hide for watching birds or a shelter from the rain. Maybe your young explorer will need to use these skills for real when they're older? Plus, they make a good party trick!

The Nature Connection is a beautiful book for older kids that gets them thinking about and engaging with nature. 

This is a workbook packed with activities that get kids really noticing what is going on in the world around them. The book is full of information and questions to get kids thinking and developing their observational skills. 

This is a brilliant book for connecting with nature. Kids will learn about sunrises, seasons and constellations. They'll notice lots of details and evidence of nature around them. 

This is a lovely gift for getting kids hooked on nature for life. It teaches kids how to be a naturalist and to develop their journaling skills. 

This unusual gift has the potential to be one of those books that a child will remember into adulthood. 

This My First Lab Duo-Scope microscope is a proper microscope that can be used to investigage microscopic items on slides and also real-world objects like bugs, coins and leaves. 

This microscope gets excellent reviews for being durable, functioning well and coming with a detailed manual and lots of accessories. 

It also has LED illumination - a great feature that really improves the experience. 

Learning to use this microscope is good practice for using an adult microscope in a lab.