Game for drive to trailhead: Last Letter Relay

Photo courtesy of Rocky
Mountain NPS.

Once you’ve got your children excited about the hike, you next have to get them to the trailhead, probably in a motor vehicle. Sometimes those drives to a national forest, nature preserve or state park can be long. You can keep kids’ spirits up by playing games on the drive there.

One tried and true possibility is Last Letter Relay.

Determine the order in which children will go. The first child then says a short, easy-to-spell nature word, such as rabbit. The next player must come up with a nature word that starts with the last letter of the first player’s word – in this case, t, so the word tulip would work. The third player then must come up with a nature word that starts with the last letter of the second player’s word – in this case, p, so the word pond would work.

The child who can’t think of a word ends the relay, so you might place a time limit for giving a response. In addition, a child who gives a word that doesn’t start with the correct letter ends the relay.

Nature words can be names of animals, plants or landscape features. You may wish to expand the boundaries of what is a nature word by adding weather or hiking words.

Materials: None needed

Ages: 9 and up

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