Kids In Nature - Ohio

06/09/2026

Less than a week until our Healthy Fathers, Healthy Families guided hike! It is this Saturday, the 13th. Kids In Nature is offering this free hike in partnership with The Ross Wellness Group and the ADAMH Board of Franklin County. We would love for you to join us!

Dads and their children are invited to join us at Highbanks Metro Park on Saturday, June 13th from 10am to 12pm for an exploration of not only the natural beauty and wonder of the park, but also themselves. Through guided activities that highlight how nature can lead to healthier, more regulated emotions, fathers will leave our hike feeling more connected to themselves, their children, and nature! There will also be various fun activities for the kids, of course, in addition to some free "adventure kits" for the kids!

Spots are limited, so please follow the QR code on our flyer or go to this link https://forms.gle/eUTxd3BCfL26iBC26 to get to our form to register and reserve your spot today! You can also email us at [email protected] to register if needed. If you register, please watch your email for more details including the exact location to meet us.

Reserve your spot on our guided hike on Saturday, June 13th from 10am to 12pm at Highbanks Metro Park. Spots are limited to 25 Fathers and their children. Activities will be focused on the dads and their kids, but moms or other family members are welcome to join! Children must be able to walk the tr...

05/26/2026

Looking for something to do with the family this coming weekend? This Saturday (the 30th) is our Motherhood Hike at Clear Creek Metro Park outside of Lancaster, and the weather forecast looks great! The whole family is invited, but the theme and activities will be around moms and their kids. See more details in the flyer in the images! Please email us at [email protected] to RSVP and receive further details ahead of the hike.

We also have some pictures of the hike location in this post, featuring our Chief Operation Officer’s nieces! These were taken a few years back at Clear Creek on the same trail we will be hiking on Saturday. There are also some pictures of Kids In Nature leading a hike last fall!

We are looking for more people to sign up for the hike Saturday and for our Responsible Fatherhood Hike in June; let us know if you would like to join us or if you have any questions. We look forward to getting you and your family out in nature!

05/21/2026

Kids In Nature, in partnership with The Ross Wellness Group and the ADAMH Board of Franklin County, is happy to announce our second installment of our Families In Nature Guided Hike Series — the Healthy Fathers, Healthy Families Guided Hike!

Dads and their children are invited to join us at Highbanks Metro Park on Saturday, June 13th from 10am to 12pm for an exploration of not only the natural beauty and wonder of the park, but also themselves. Through guided activities that highlight how nature can lead to healthier, more regulated emotions, fathers will leave our hike feeling more connected to themselves, their children, and nature!

Spots are limited, so please follow the QR code on our flyer, or email [email protected], to register and reserve your spot today!

05/19/2026

Kids In Nature got the opportunity to do another KIN in the Classroom program with a Pre-K class last week! This time, we visited Miss. Johnson’s Pre-K class at Moler Elementary up here in Columbus. We had beautiful weather this time, so we got to do our programming on the playground!

This class opted to do the Pollinator Seed Ball program as well; the students were eager to get their hands dirty and make some seed balls for their yards! We greatly enjoyed spending the morning with the class. We were happy to hear that they felt the same way, as Miss. Johnson shared that one of the students said, “Those nature people were so nice!” That’s feedback we’ll take any day 😊

Let us know if you work at a school that would be interested in some KIN programming next school year! We can do short classroom programs like these, guided hikes, or even our Garden Club Start-up Series. We would love to help get your kids outside during the next school year!

05/11/2026

Kids In Nature is excited to announce that we are launching our 2026 Families In Nature Guided Hike Series!

Our first guided hike will be this month on Saturday, May 30th at Clear Creek Metro Park outside of Lancaster. The focus this month will be motherhood, in honor of Mother’s Day! The whole family is invited, but the theme and activities will be around moms and their kids. See more details in the image below! Please email us at [email protected] to RSVP and receive further details ahead of the hike.

Our free Families In Nature hiking series will continue with a hike each month through October. These hikes will be held at various local Metro Parks and city parks around Central Ohio, with each month having a different theme! We want to get the whole family out to enjoy nature together on these hikes; however, we do require that children be able to walk the trails on their own without being carried or the use of a stroller.

Experienced K.I.N. staff will guide the families along beautiful trails, teaching everyone about local plants and animals, as well as providing activities along the trail for everyone! Again, these hikes are free so the spots will go fast; all you must do to reserve your spot is RSVP via our email to get exact details and meeting locations.

We look forward to getting you and your family out in nature!

04/29/2026

We had a great time at Green Columbus Earth Day celebration this weekend! Kids had the opportunity to make their very ornament and several new people and organizations got to learn about Step Outside.

A massive thank you goes to Kids In Nature - Ohio for tabling together and getting everything set up!

04/27/2026

It was a big weekend for Kids In Nature and we are feeling really grateful!

On Saturday, we held our first community event, which was our first annual Spring Tool Drive, at Blendon Woods Metro Park. Our goal was to collect donations of gently used and new garden tools, gloves, and other items for our garden programs. Our network showed up in a huge way and donated an estimated $500 value of garden items! You can see the items donated in a couple of the pictures (not pictured are a bunch more pots, plus more soil and mulch!). These donations will be a huge help for garden programs, especially our first one we have coming up with the Summer Kid’s Club that Clintonville-Beechwold Community Resources Center runs. We also had food from Figs & Brie Grazing Co., games, and a fun planting activity for the kids where they planted a flower and took it home! Each kid was sent home with gloves and care instructions for their specific flower, so they could continue using their green thumbs at home.

On Sunday, we were able to table alongside Step Outside at Green Columbus’ Earth Day Celebration! Big thanks to Joann at Step Outside for connecting us with this event. We shared information about Kids In Nature’s mission and upcoming events with many people who stopped by our table and connected with some potential partners that we are really excited about! It was also a blast seeing the cool items vendors were selling and checking out other organizations.

It was a busy weekend, but we are excited for the growth we are experiencing and our upcoming programs. Thank you to our network that supports us and our mission to encourage curiosity, cultivate confidence, and inspire a lifelong appreciation for the natural world - all to help kids grow into their full potential!

04/24/2026

Don’t forget that tomorrow, Saturday, April 25th, is Kids In Nature’s First Annual Spring Tool Drive at the Dogwood Shelterhouse in Blendon Woods Metro Park. We will be at the park from 11am to 2pm, and we have so much more going on than just dropping off tools! We will have beautiful flowers that you can plant and take home yourself, nature-based arts and crafts for the whole family, and direct access to one of Columbus’s amazing Metro Parks - Blendon Woods!

To make gardening more accesible for kids across Ohio, we partner with youth serving organizations, schools, and communities to assist them in starting their very own Garden Clubs. The tools that we receive at our Spring Tool Drive go directly back to our partner programs and thier students to ensure that our partners can grow the best youth-managed gardens possible.

Please consider bringing out your lightly used garden tools and supporting Kids In Nature’s Garden Clubs. By doing this, you are helping further the mission of Kids In Nature and making sure kids have the resources to grow into their full potential!

04/21/2026

Kids In Nature had the privilege of having our very own table at North YMCA's Healthy Kids Day this past weekend! We were able to plant over 100 herbs and flowers in individual pots for the kids to take home and grow themselves, just in time for gardening season. A big thank you goes out to Step Outside and the North YMCA for inviting us out.

If you want to help Kids In Nature continue planting seeds across Ohio, or you just want to see more kids flexing their green thumbs, please consider donating today at this link - https://donorbox.org/kids-in-nature-spring-summer-programming-917755. Anything you can do will help KIN continue to keep kids healthy and engaged with the outdoors, all while helping them grow into their full potential!

02/18/2026

Snowdrops are one of the first signs that the end of winter is near and warmer weather is on the horizon. Even though snowdrops always bloom around this time of year, the unseasonably warm weather has also brought out some honey bees to enjoy these early spring pollinators!