In this work, magnetic nanomaterials were synthesized by grafting diglycolamide (DGA) derivatives onto polydopamine (PDA) functionalized magnetic nanomaterials (Fe3O4@PDA@DGA). The adsorption behaviors of Fe3O4@PDA@DGA for rare earth elements (REEs) were evaluated. The characterization results indicated that the Fe3O4 nanoparticles form a hexagonal-like two-dimensional projection shape, and DGA is successfully grafted onto the surface of the nanomaterials. By using Fe3O4@PDA@DGA nanomaterials as the adsorption material, a novel method for magnetic solid phase extraction (MSPE) coupled with inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) was developed, which can quantitatively determine trace REEs in environmental water. With the MSPE procedure, the parameters affecting the adsorption behaviors of the REEs on Fe3O4@PDA@DGA nanomaterials, such as pH, ultrasonic adsorption time, mass and solution volume were investigated systematically. Under the optimum experimental conditions, the limits of detections (LODs) and the relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 16 REEs (C=10 mu g L-1, n=7) were in the range of 0.039 mu g L-1 for Eu to 0.425 mu g L-1 for Nd and 1% for La to 3.9% for Gd. The linear range of the calibration curve over 2-1000 ng mL(-1) (R-2 > 0.999) was obtained for the target analytes. This developed method was applied for the environmental samples and the recoveries were 95.8-105.8% for the spiked water. The proposed MSPE-ICP-OES method has the advantages of easy separation, simple operation, good anti-interference capability, fast adsorption and elution kinetics, low detection limits, high sensitivity and fast analysis speed, thereby acting as a potential application for the simultaneous analysis of trace REEs in environmental samples.