Great hiking activity for kids: Bark Rubbings

Kids will love to make bark rubbings during a day hike.

Generally, exploring and discovery is enough for kids, but sometimes even they can grow bored with that and become restless. Remember that they naturally have shorter attention spans than adults.

Fortunately, there are lots of tried and true activities you can do on the trail that’ll keep kids from getting bored. Among them is Bark Rubbings.

If walking through a forest with a variety of trees, have children keep a record of the different kinds they encounter with bark rubbings. Place a piece of paper over each tree and rub an unwrapped crayon sideways over it. Later use a tree identification guide to see what kind of tree it is. You’ll need to bring paper and crayons. As an alternative, or in addition to bark, they can make rubbings of leaves that have fallen from the tree.

Materials: Crayons, paper.

Ages: 6 and up.

Read more about day hiking with children in my guidebook Hikes with Tykes.