4 Hiking Activities to Spark Your Child’s Love of Nature

1 Map Making

A great post-hike activity or engaging craft to tackle at a picnic table en-route. Bring colored pencils, crayons, and markers, and encourage your kids to create their own maps of the trail you’ve taken. Youngsters may add all kinds of interesting landmarks and memories to their maps. The tree where we found the bird’s nest! The rock where we stopped for a snack and told silly jokes! Make sure to compare your maps afterwards, ask lots of questions, and discover each child’ s different perspective.

2 Scavenger Hunts

This hiking-focused take on an old classic is a winner for families with kids across the spectrum of ages. Make a list of items everyone has to find, and the first to find them all wins the game. For a leave-no-trace approach, be sure to add that everyone’s feet need to stay on the trail while they spot the items on the list. Your list can be different each time you play, and don’t be afraid to get creative: A heart-shaped rock! A leaf with three points! Something made by humans! A bird in flight! The sky’s the limit. For an extra bonus, have your youngsters contribute to the list before you head off on the trail.

3

Close Ups

Have someone run ahead on the trail with a camera or phone, and take a photo of a natural object they find. It can be a leaf, tree root, insect, rock, moss, or any of the myriad other amazing things you’ll discover in the natural world, but it should be something that you can spot right from on the trail. When the other players catch up to look at the photo, it’s their job to discover what it’s a picture of. This game is an exercise in awareness, and will train participants both old and young to see the world around them anew.

4 Urban Sketching

Bring art supplies along with you and take a break on a bench or in a meadow to draw your surroundings; whether that’s a tiny ladybug, the passersby on the trail, or the big blue sky. You can use colored pencils, pens, crayons, or for older children, find a picnic table and set up watercolor paints and paper. It’s amazing how much time you may end up wiling away as you reinterpret the world around you in your art.