Need a more interactive hike? Try these fun ideas on your next adventure!

We've been taking the opportunity of weekend hiking with all of the nice weather and the need for being anywhere but our home offices. If you're feeling similar and want to get out of the house with the kids this weekend, try out some of these ideas to make the most of the outdoors!

🌱 Nature Homes

At a stopping point on your trail, have your kids collect some objects that they find, just on the trail: sticks, fallen leaves, small rocks, etc. Then have them build a house for an animal that you have seen or heard on the trail: a bird, a bug, etc. 

How does the animal move or sound? Act it out! 

When you're done playing, dismantle the little animal home and put the materials back where you found them. Remember an important part about hiking is to respect the animals' home and leave no trace.  

🔤 Trail ABCs

As you start the trail, have your kids look for something that starts with the letter A and point it out. Then as you go along your hike, keep going until you've made it to the end of the alphabet!

For help with trickier letters, see if you can find an adjective to describe something that includes the letter. For example, if you can't find something with the letter "Y", maybe you can find a "yellow bird".

🐦 Bird Spy

Birdwatching can get a bad rap for being boring when really, it's a game! The goal is to see and hear as many birds as you can. Keep a tally going of how many birds you find on your hike. Try it out for a few weeks and see how high of a score you can get.

Do you get higher scores when you visit different parks? Are you seeing a lot of one kind of bird or a lot of different kinds of birds?

A way to make it easier to focus on each bird can be to make your own binoculars before you go on your hike. Using an empty toilet paper or paper towel roll, tape two of them together and decorate it! 

Hopefully you give some of these games a try and have fun out in nature!

For more fun, say hello on instagram @playfollies!