After-the-hike activity: Trail Tree Guide

What trees are on this trail?
Photo courtesy of Photoree.

Once you’ve completed your first hike, pat yourself on the back. You’ve done a lot of work but have taken the first step into a larger world for both you and your children.

To keep kid’s enthusiasm charged, “review” the hike in kid-friendly ways. While you really can’t do this with infants, most toddlers and older kids will enjoy it. One post-hike game/activity you might consider for middle and high school-aged kids is Trail Tree Guide.

While the children hike, have them carry a small paper bag in which they collect leaves and pine needles. Having a tree field guide and notepad with them can be helpful to ensure they correctly identify the tree along the trail.

Once home, have them create a tree guide for the trail by pasting or drawing the leaves and needles into paper that they organize into a book. Have them label each leaf and set of needles and maybe add some information about the tree from the field guide. Add a cover page as well.

Teens good at using the computer can even create an online guide to the trail’s trees. 

Materials: Small paper bag, notepad, pen or pencil, tree field guide, letter-sized paper

Ages: 12 and up

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