Summer Nature Table Ideas

A summer nature table is a space in the home used for placing handmade and natural items that reflect the season, to look like the natural world in the summertime.

A summer nature table serves as a beautiful learning center for children that pays tribute to the natural world, and is suitable for both home and classroom settings. The main idea is to create a space that captures the essence of summer on a table or shelf. In Waldorf education, nature tables are designed to be observed, explored, played with, and used as educational tools to help children connect with and appreciate the wondrous, ever-changing natural world. You might also enjoy making and keeping a Nature Journal or notebook.

A Waldorf nature table is an excellent space for children to learn and engage in imaginative and sensory play. Today, these seasonal tables are also utilized in Montessori and Reggio-Emilia education methods. Nature tables also offer a beautiful way to incorporate seasonal decor into both home and classroom environments. The advantage of these open-ended learning resources is the freedom they provide; you can create your nature table however you wish, with no limits other than your imagination.

Create a summer nature table in your classroom or home to add to your summer DIY home decor and give your little naturalist a place to learn and play with the fantastic summer nature table ideas below. You might also enjoy these Summer Activities for Kids.

Purpose of a Summer Nature Table:

Nature tables showcase collected natural objects that reflect the season to promote observation, exploration, and appreciation of the natural world, in this case, summertime. A summer nature table captures the essence of summer and helps children learn about the beauty of the natural world and the changing seasons. However, a table with seasonal elements displayed serves more purposes than just studying nature. It can also offer a rich sensory experience for children and encourage imaginative play.

Nature tables are beneficial in educational settings such as Waldorf, Montessori, or Reggio Emilia classrooms, as well as for homeschoolers. Every authentic Waldorf kindergarten features a nature table filled with natural treasures and scenes that change with the seasons throughout the year, evoking a sense of wonder and stirring the imagination.

Additionally, they serve as beautiful seasonal decorations that can enhance any home, especially those with children. Collecting nature’s treasures for these decorative seasonal tables is also a great way to get kids outside exploring nature and learning about the differences between each season.

Creating a beautiful table in the summertime with treasures from nature or that represent the natural world in summer is fun for children of all ages, most notably younger children, such as preschoolers and kindergarteners. Use the ideas below to create a summer display on a table or shelf in your home or classroom.

How to Make a Summer Nature Table:

There are many wonderful ways to design a nature table. The space you have, your intentions, your interests, the resources available to you, the age of your children, and your mood will all influence the nature table you create. The basic idea is simple: decorate a small table or shelf with seasonal elements with a summer theme.

Making one can range from minimal to extravagant. Use a combination of nature table supplies of your choice from the options on the list below, and the step-by-step instructions included below the list of summer craft options in the following section, to create a seasonal nature table. Include items that you find in nature and those that reflect the summer season. Some ideas include:

Summer Nature Table Supplies:

A summer-themed nature table can consist of any of the following optional supplies:

• Live house plants and flowers.
• Fresh bouquet in a vase.
• Moss or other collected greenery.
• Anything from nature that reflects the summer season and is safe for children to handle and play with.
• Homemade summer nature crafts and DIY decor made with natural items.
  • Read through the ideas in the following section.
• Summer artwork, such as painted flowers, summer scenery, or landscapes.
• Summer figurines:
  • Wooden animal toys, hand-sewn creatures, ceramic crafts, and homemade crafts that resemble animals, birds, insects, etc., preferably made with natural materials, are great options.
• Summer books for children to look at and read to learn more about the season.
• A summer-themed sensory bin or educational nature tray to put on or under the table.
• Magnifying glass to explore natural materials in more depth.
• Decorative or sentimental objects that represent summer and are acceptable for children to touch and play with.
• Anything else that reflects the season, holiday, festival, culture, school, or family values.
• Please don’t include small or breakable objects if your children are under three years of age. These items can present a choking hazard or break.

The step-by-step instructions below the list of craft supplies in the next section go into greater detail about many of the ideas above. Scroll down to learn more.

Optional Homemade Summer Crafts for Nature Tables:

Create summer arts and crafts with nature’s treasures to place on your seasonal table. Following are a few optional summer crafts you can make and put on the table when you change the table from spring to summer, and throughout the remainder of the season:

1. DIY summer Tree:

• A beautiful summer table decor idea often seen in Waldorf schools is to use bare branches to make small summer trees by placing green wool roving all over the twig tips.
• Alternatively, a DIY Butterfly Tree, constructed of bare branches, with or without wool roving, is another summer tree DIY home decor idea that makes a beautiful centerpiece perfect for a summer table. 
  • Attach decorative Monarch butterflies, dragonflies, and bumblebees to its branches.
• Photos of both of these types of summer trees are included in the examples of summer nature tables below the step-by-step instructions.

2. Beeswax Summer Figurines:

• Create summer-themed figurines using natural modeling beeswax, featuring summer animals, insects, plants, and more.
• Here are a few simple ideas you can make with beeswax for a summer table:
  • Mama deer and her doe
  • A bird’s nest with baby birds
  • Bumble bee
  • Butterfly
  • Dragon Fly
  • Rose

3. Butterfly Crafts:

• Another summer handmade craft I designed with my daughter for our nature table is these adorable little Monarch butterfly peg dolls.
• As you can see in the photographs, I used pieces from the oak tree in our backyard to make simple display stands for the Monarch butterfly peg dolls.
  • My husband used a saw to cut these pieces from a fallen branch that fell from the oak tree in our backyard, or you can purchase them HERE.
• Natural wooden blocks also make wonderful building blocks for the backyard or garden.

4. Flower Crafts:

• Make handmade felt flowers with twig stems to display on a summer table.
• Create flower crafts with fresh, dried, or pressed flowers.
• Flower crafts are also perfect for a spring table.

5. Summer Sensory Basket, Bin, or Educational Nature Tray:

• Nature sensory baskets are a wonderful additional element that can be kept on or near the nature table.
• Use any natural materials found in your area at this time of year to make a summer nature sensory bin, basket, or educational tray.
• Create a summer sensory bin, basket, or tray with natural items from your local area to explore in more depth, including blooming herbs and flowers to smell, small pine cones, sticks, feathers, rocks, etc.
• If you prefer not to display your nature sensory bin or tray, you can slide it under the table for easy access by your child.

6. Painted Rocks or Story Stones with a Summer Theme:

• My daughter and I had a wonderful time collecting and painting rocks to put on our nature table and place out in our garden.
• These rocks can also be used as story stones to illustrate an oral summer story.

7. DIY Tabletop Mini Fairy Garden:

• A miniature tabletop fairy garden with a beach theme also makes a lovely element on a summer nature table.
• Look at this DIY Beach Fairy Garden for instructions and ideas.
• This type of fairy garden can also be used in place of a summer nature table if preferred.

Step-by-step Summer-Themed Nature Table Instructions:

Follow the step-by-step instructions below to create a summer-themed table in your home or classroom:

1. Gather natural items for a summer table:

Get outside on a nature hunt to collect natural items to bring home to explore in more depth, such as flowers, pinecones, seeds, and birds’ nests. Spending time outdoors with children collecting natural materials to display on your nature table is a fun summer activity for kids of all ages.

There is so much more going on than the simple collecting and admiring of these natural materials. It’s very exciting for my daughter to find natural objects during the summer months to take home to explore in more depth. The sparkle in her eyes when she announces she’ll bring something home for the summer nature table makes it all worthwhile. Talk to your kids about what they find to help them learn more about the world around them. Nature Sensory Bottles are also helpful for this purpose.

2. Decorate the summer-themed table:

• Start by covering the table with silk or cotton fabric in seasonal colors.
  • In Waldorf education, fabric made of silk or cotton is typically draped on the nature tables and used to create nature scenes with small animal toys and crafts such as the ones in the photographs.
• Use the natural items you collect and homemade arts and crafts to decorate the table.
  • The nature craft ideas above these step-by-step instructions can help you decorate a summer-themed nature table.
• Dig your summer decor box out of storage and find other things to display on the table or shelf that you love.
• Aim to create a seasonal table that adds to the classroom environment or family life. It should be something your students or family enjoys looking at and that invites your children to explore and learn through play.
• Consider including a magnifying glass for deeper exploration of the objects on the table.
• Please don’t include anything unsafe for your child to touch or play with. Keep small and breakable objects off the table until your child is mature enough to handle them.
• When you change that table at the end of the summer to represent the season of fall or autumn, store the summer-themed items on the table to reuse next year. In other words, reuse materials and put them away as the seasons change.

3. Display items and create scenes that capture the essence of summer on the table:

Find and place items that reflect the summer season on the table. In the summer, the natural world is lively and full of energy. The tops of trees are covered with lush green leaves. Flowers are blooming, lining fields, meadows, and front yards with vibrant colors.

Insects flutter through the air, buzzing and carrying out their various tasks. Animals search for food and raise their young. Because the sun is at its highest point in the sky, the weather is warm, the days are longer, and the nights are shorter compared to winter.

Use natural materials that evoke the feeling of summer to create various scenes on the table, such as bare branches covered in green wool roving, or any of the summer nature table ideas included in the previous steps. Discover more seasonal elements you can include on your nature table in this informative article about the Signs of Summer.

4. Include books about summer on or near the table:

Keep summer books on or under the nature table for children to look at or read, depending on their age and ability. Gerda Müller has a book for each season, without words, that young children, such as toddlers and preschoolers, love to look at on their own.

I love to include her book “Summer” on our nature table, along with a few other seasonally appropriate books from our collection or the library in the summertime. If you check out library books for this purpose, don’t forget to renew them if needed and return them at the end of the summer as fall approaches.

Summer Nature Table DIY Decor Examples:

Read through the examples below, complete photographs to see a few different examples of how to make a summer nature table:

1. Waldorf Kindergarten Summer Nature Table:

• The Waldorf nature table below was on display in a kindergarten classroom when my daughter attended Blue Oak Charter School before we returned to homeschooling.
• Purple and green cotton fabric covers the table, with a small blue scrap of silk used to create a pond for a wooden tadpole figurine.
  • Pieces of driftwood that look like logs in the pond hold the fabric in place.
• It includes bare branches with green wool roving applied to the twig tips to create the look of summer trees with a full crown of leaves propped at the back of the table.
  • The larger one on the right has a bird’s nest and a few butterflies sitting in its branches.
• There is a white silk backdrop hung behind the nature table.
• Wooden fox figurines are playing on the hillside of a green meadow.
• There is an artificial bird’s nest in the meadow near the pond, ready for children to make baby birds with beeswax and place them inside it.
• Wooden rooster and chicken figurines stand upon wooden rounds cut from the branch of a tree on the left side of the table.
• A hand-sewn flower sits above the chickens and roosters in the meadow.
• Lavender handwoven sachets are placed around the scene to provide the scent of lavender on a summer day.
• There is summer artwork and books on the table for the children to enjoy.

2. Summer Nature Table with a Sea, Land, and Sky Beach Theme:

• On the summer nature table pictured below, I used Sarah’s silks in emerald, lime, gold, and turquoise to create a sandy beach with an ocean, meadows, and grasses on shore.
• Next, I added aquamarine glass gems, royal blue floral gems, and clear gems or flat-backed marbles on top of the blue playsilk to give the summer nature table a beach vibe with ocean water and waves.
• Then I added some shells and pebbles to create the feel of a rocky shore to represent land as an element of nature.
• To make it even more fun, I added a wooden wave toy to give the ocean the appearance of moving waves and represent another element of nature–water.
• I also placed toy birds, homemade Monarch Butterfly crafts to represent the air element, and some sea animals in the ocean water on the table. The element of fire is implied, represented by the imaginary summer sun shining above the display.
  • My daughter enjoys playing with the toy animals, using the nature table as an imaginative playground.
  • Of course, small animal toys made of natural materials such as wood and wool are preferred for Waldorf nature tables; however, we do what we can.

3. Super Simple Summer Nature Table Decor:

• One summer, my daughter and I decided to keep our nature table simple, featuring only a butterfly tree (with bees and dragonflies included), a summer book sitting out of frame, and fresh flowers, with a summer-themed nature sensory bin stashed underneath.
• You can see an echinacea flower that my daughter picked in the garden and arranged in a small glass vase in the photo below, on the day the photograph was taken.
• Not only does a nature table change seasonally, but it can also change daily depending on what is added throughout the summer months.
  • My daughter regularly picked and arranged flowers to display on the table, and added other natural items that she found in nature on our daily nature walk, on the table, and in baskets as the season progressed.
  • We also put fresh fruit from the garden, such as peaches, in wooden bowls on the table to eat and enjoy the taste of summer.

Related: DIY Nature Memory Matching Game

Nature Table Ideas for Every Season:

For more nature table ideas, don’t forget to have a look at our autumn, winter, and spring nature tables.

• Fall Nature Table
• Winter Nature Table
• Spring Nature Table

Summer Nature Table Ideas for Natural Learning

A summer nature table is a space in the home for placing natural items that reflect the season. It is made to be explored, played with, and used as a way to study nature in the home. Nature tables are great for sensory and imaginative play and are often used in Montessori and Waldorf education.

You can create your nature table exactly as you like; there are no limits other than the limits of your imagination. You can be as minimal or as outlandish as you please. We hope you enjoy creating a summer nature table this summer! You may also like this fantastic collection of nature study supplies for kids.

Check out these summer activities with a printable bucket list for more seasonal fun.

Learn more about Nell Regan Kartychok, author and photographer of these summer nature table ideas HERE, and Rhythms of Play HERE!

Other Summer Activities to Enjoy:

• Summer Solstice Celebration Ideas
• Signs of Summer Scavenger Hunt
• Flower Suncatcher Crafts
• Sand and Water Tables Kids LOVE!