Make a Neighborhood Safari for Earth Week

This is a sponsored post.

It’s Earth Week! 🌏 We are very excited to partner with National Geographic to celebrate Earth Week by having a “Neighborhood Safari” at home!⁣ National Geographic is encouraging families across the globe to bring the wonders of the wild world to their very own neighborhoods with an Earth Day Neighborhood Safari, as a way of staying connected with both nature and each other.

The kids and I had the best time creating this Jungle Safari in our front yard so that everyone in our neighborhood could enjoy it this week. We had more fun with this activity than we have had in weeks, we really needed this time to create together as a family. We used chalk to create a jungle map with fun obstacles through our front yard, complete with monkeys, elephants, tigers, snakes and crocodiles.

Also, during Earth Week (April 17-22), NatGeoathome.com is offering some extra special programs to inspire families to celebrate the planet from home. From engaging animal videos and DIY projects, to daily live talks from National Geographic Explorers, National Geographic has set up a virtual base camp to keep the spirit of exploration and adventure strong for kids. So make sure to check those out. I am sure we all could use a dose of animal cuteness. ⁣So make sure to head over to National Geographic to check it all out.

Our Jungle Safari Obstacle Course!

Here is a video of the kids going through our entire neighborhood "Jungle Safari Obstacle Course." Isn't it fun?!!!

How Did We Make Our Neighborhood Safari?

We started off by searching our house for any stuffed animals that would be seen in the jungle, and placed them around the Safari obstacle course. We found some tigers, and elephant, a crocodile pool toy and a lizard.

I loved making the moneys and jungle vines. We used fabric scraps for the vines. Just ripped the fabric into strips and tied it to a long piece of twine. I found a template for this monkey online. You might recognize it from the "Barrel of Moneys game." I cut out a bunch of them from brown cardstock. They hung so perfectly from the vines...it was so cute!

Then we made these binoculars from paper towel rolls and construction paper. First we wrapped the colored paper around each of the rolls, and then we taped them together. We used a hole punch to make a hole on each side of the binoculars, and tied on soft twine for the neck strap.

Our next stop on the Jungle Safari Obstacle Course was an Elephant Ring Toss Game. We make the elephants from random boxes we've been collecting. The flaps were the ears, and we glued a cardboard tube on the front to make the elephant trunks. After that, we painted everything gray and added black eyes once dried. The rings were just made from crumpled up kraft paper.

Sidewalk chalk worked perfectly to map out the jungle safari course and make different sections to enjoy to different jungle scenes. Our main scenes were the monkey vines, the tiger area, elephant ring toss, snake hurdles, crocodile swamp and snack table.

For the snake hurdles, we used pool noodles. To make the zig zag design and the eyes, we used black electrical tape. We cute the noodles with scissors to create tapered tail and head, and glued a ribbon into the hole for the tongue.

We added fun elements to make our jungle obstacle course more exciting such as "RUN!" when you get to the crocodile.

At the end of the obstacle course, I wanted to add a jungle safari themed snack table for the kids to enjoy after all our hard work. I also added water and called it the "water hole." The kids loved all the fun jungle themed snacks, which we ate all up. We did leave some bananas, oranges and water out for our neighbors to enjoy though!

Now it’s your turn! I’d love for you to join in and design your own safari stop with your own kiddies. You can create a jungle safari obstacle course like ours, or do your own take on a neighborhood safari – decorate your front door, garage door or cars, chalk your driveway, make a bird feeder, etc. If you need some resources, head over to NatGeoatHome.com. ⁣

And please encourage your friends and neighbors to do the same. Wouldn’t it be cool to have your whole neighborhood participate? And be on the lookout, Nat Geo will be creating a feed of “safari art” to help bring neighborhoods all over the world together during this moment of isolation. Make sure to tag your creations on Instagram with #NatGeoEarthDayAtHome.

Happy Earth Week!!!!
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