Foraging with Kids

Spring and summer are an amazing time to get out and go foraging with kids! If you’ve never heard the term before, foraging is when you go out into your yard, into the woods, or on a nature trail to find edible plants, mushrooms, flowers, etc. that are growing wild. It’s a great way to see science in real life, beyond a curriculum or biology lesson!

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Download the free spring nature pages, to record your foraging and other nature finds:

Grab these FREE spring nature pages to guide your time outside:

Benefits of foraging:

There are so many benefits to foraging with your kids. The first is that it’s a lot of fun! Spending time with your kiddos outside getting fresh air, learning about nature, and identifying plants together can be a great bonding experience.

Foraging gives your kids a great education of survival skills and nature. You could easily combine foraging with lessons on survival/camping; how plants grow; health and nutrition; cooking; or ecosystems, climates, and biomes.

It’s also just a great source of free food or medicine!

Safety:

It’s incredibly important that your kids understand that until they know what plants are safe to eat – and until you feel confident in their ability to identify the plants on their own – you teach your kids not to eat anything without you.

Don’t trespass – check maps to make sure you are foraging in areas where you are allowed to be.
Don’t forage in public spaces that may be sprayed with pesticides. Areas around public parks (not wildlife areas, but playgrounds) or on the side of the road are often sprayed.
Don’t over pick in one area, or you won’t find anything left to forage next season!
Before you go, make sure you do research for poisonous/dangerous plants and mushrooms in your specific area. Bring along reference books or download a plant identification app (see the bottom of the post for resources) so that you don’t eat something you shouldn’t.
Never eat something that you aren’t 100% sure is safe! When in doubt, don’t eat it.
If you live in an area where ticks are prevalent or if you head into the woods, make sure you do a thorough check for ticks afterward.

Here are just a few examples of plants you can forage:

Plants:

Dandelion leaves
Stinging nettle
Plantain
Mullein
Garlic mustard
Dead nettle
Ramps (wild leeks)
Jewelweed

Flowers:

Violets
Lilacs
Redbuds
Dandelion
Echinacea
Clover

Fruit:

Raspberries
Elderberries
Blueberries
Mulberries

Mushrooms:

*make sure you are very confident that you can identify look-alikes or poisonous mushrooms*

Morels
Pheasant Back

Once you have collected your foraged goodies, some of these items may be edible raw. Others may be good for making jelly, salve, tea, etc. with them. And many can be made into yummy food like baked goods (like dandelion muffins or cookies) or soup (like nettle soup).

Check out this dandelion salve recipe you and your child can make together.

Depending on the age of your child, this is a great chance to dig into a study of herbal medicine! Even young kids can begin to understand how herbs can help our bodies.

The book Herbal Adventures is a great place to start with younger kids.

Literature

The Witch of Blackbird Pond – one of the main characters regularly heads through the wilderness gathering medicinal herbs.
Beyond Mulberry Glen
Blueberries for Sal
It all Starts with a Seed: how food grows
Planting the Wild Garden
Planting a Rainbow
Wildflower ABC
Miss Rumphius
Watercress

Supplies:

Some helpful items you may want to have:

basket or cloth tote bag (here are some instructions on how to sew your own from a T-shirt)
small garden shears
insect repellent
plant identification app/reference books (see below)
maps of the area

Resources:

Plant identification apps:

PlantNet
Seek
The iPhone also has a built in plant identification within the photo app, but it’s not always as reliable as other apps.

Books:

Foraging with Kids
How to Forage Mushrooms Without Dying
Let’s Eat Weeds
Family Foraging
Humongous Fungus
Backyard Foraging
National Geographic Pocket Guide to Wildflowers of North America – it can also be incredibly helpful to find a field guide that is specific to your region.
Golden Guide to Wildflowers
Wildflowers, Blooms, and Blossoms (Take Along Guide)
Herbal Adventures

Games:

These FREE spring nature pages are perfect to bring along when you forage with kids. Print a few copies of them to use as a little nature journal on the go! Your littles can use the scavenger hunt, you older kids can record their foraging finds.