Hiking with Kids! Great Activities for Kids to Keep Them Entertained on the Trail
Sometimes hiking trips, and hiking with kids, can be an hour or two or even three hours long. Kids can get bored just walking some random path with no end in sight. Not even a prize was awaiting them at the end of the trail. Not much incentive to keep them happy to walk with when you, as a parent want to have a lovely hike in the woods for a warm afternoon.
I love hiking with my kiddos because it provides a great parent-child interactive time. It also provides a great way to introduce environmental education and commune with nature. I had started to come up with specific activities to keep my children entertained and their minds working on these fun hiking trips. These activities actually stopped the whining before and during our trips. Most of my ideas are best for small groups because I have only two little girls.
Nature Scavenger Hunt
Materials: Ultimate Nature Scavenger Hunt List
A nature scavenger hunt is a simple way to keep kids occupied as you walk the trails. Kids each have their printout and either a pen or pencil. As you hike, tell them to keep their eyes open and search for the items on the list. I let my kids point out each item out loud, but they can also make it a secret game. Whoever gets the most checked off by the end of the trail wins.
Mystery Collection
Materials: egg carton with one descriptive word written in each hole.
Each kid gets their own egg carton to hold while hiking. Each hole must have a descriptive word written on the bottom of each of the twelve holes. Some descriptive words to use can be; round, cube, curly, straight, fuzzy, prickly, any color, rough, smooth, dirty, clean, smelly, gross, scary, pretty, ugly, garbage, floral, fauna, etc.
The challenge is to fill all twelve spaces in the carton with items found throughout your hike. One item must fill only one descriptive word hole. When you either reach the end of the trail or your collection gets as good as it can be the game is over. Each player can show off their found descriptive treasures to each other. Each good treasure earns one point. The most points wins the game.
The Never Ending Story
Materials: None
The first person on the trail begins to tell a story and then passes it along to the next hiker behind them to continue the plot. This is a great way to keep kids and families hiking together, laughing, and being creative. We always seem to have great nature stories about animals and their habitats. They are fun because they can get crazy and very creative by the end. Since we have only four people in our group, we let the story go through everyone twice before ending it.
I am going on a hike and I bring…Game
Materials: None
Much like the Never Ending Story game, one person starts and says what they would bring on a hike beginning with the letter A. For example, “I am going on a hike and I bring an aardvark.”
The next person says the letter A word and adds a word that starts with the letter B. For example, “I am going on a hike, and I bring an aardvark and a balloon.” The game keeps going until someone messes up or gets to the end of the alphabet. This game is a fantastic memory game and helps build up vocabulary skills.