Motivate kids to hike: Adventure Journal

Get kids excited about day hiking by having them keep an adventure
journal. Photo courtesy of retro traveler / Photoree.

Even if you're excited, the kids’ calls to instead hit the local water park may drown out your announcement that a family hike is planned this weekend. What to do? Try this pre-hike activity with children to get them (and you!) excited about hitting the trail rather than the Wii console.

What to do? One tried and true possibility is to have kids create an adventure journal.

Begin by collecting articles about where you’re going to hike, from magazines, newspapers, brochures or online. Make sure this informational material has plenty of pictures. Have children create a mini-book or a poster about their anticipated adventure by cutting pictures from the informational material and creating the trail. Elementary school children might read through some of the material and even add captions to the pictures. Have children focus on what they think they’ll see during the hike, based on the informational materials

Materials: Informational material about where you plan to hike, glue or tape, paper, scissors, stapler w/staples (for binding paper into a book)

Ages: 4 and up

Learn about more than a hundred other hiking diversions for kids in Hikes with Tykes: Games and Activities.