Activity for hiking kids: Same and Different

"The rocks are the same as they are flat
and have founded edges."

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 Same and Different.

Have pairs of children on their own find the same kind of object – two leaves, two twigs, two stones, etc. – along the trail. The objects should be small enough that they can carry them.

At the next rest stop, have them list what is similar about the found objects – maybe their color, their size, their shape, and so on. The older the child, the more specific the answer should be, such as red, three inches long, or oval. Then have the children list what is different about their objects.

To turn this into a competition, the pair that can list the most similarities and differences wins.

Materials: Objects found along the trail

Ages: Four and up

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