Day Hiking Trails: Fun game for kids on day hike: Puddles

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Fun game for kids on day hike: Puddles

Image courtesy of Theeradech Sanin /
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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 Puddles.

During a rest break, divide a nearby puddle into equal parts matching the number of children in the hiking group. Assign one part to each child. Count how many insects or birds come to the puddle to drink. Children score a point for each insect that lands/drinks from their assigned portion, two points for an exotic insect since as a dragonfly, and three points for each bird. The child with the most points at the end of the break wins.

Materials: Puddle, sticks for marking boundaries in puddle

Ages: 5 and up

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

Meet the Author

My name is Rob Bignell. I'm a long-time hiker, journalist and editor. My son Kieran and I have been hiking together for the past decade. Before Kieran, I taught middle school students in New Mexico and Wisconsin, served as an infantryman in the Army National Guard, and worked in newspapers. I've won several journalism awards, from editorial writing to sports reporting. In 2001, The Prescott Journal, which I served as managing editor of, was named Wisconsin’s Weekly Newspaper of the Year. Currently I own and operate an online editing business, Inventing Reality Editing Service. After spending several years in Southern California, my son and I now live in Wisconsin on the scenic Red Cedar River.