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 Pebble Grab.
Have children collect pebbles along the trail; the smaller the pebble, the better. Gather all of the pebbles together into a single bag.
At a rest break, have each child place his hand into the bag, without looking inside it, and pull out a closed handful of pebbles. The child then has to guess how many pebbles he is holding.
This can be turned into a competition by following a couple of simple rules: First, if the child’s guess is under the amount actually in his hand, he gets to keep the number of pebbles guessed. Secondly, if the child’s guess is over the amount in his hand, all of the pebbles go back in the bag. After three or four rounds, the child with the most pebbles wins.
Materials: Pebbles collected on the trail, small bag
Ages: 4-12
Read more about day hiking with children in my Hikes with Tykes guidebooks.
