Day Hiking Trails: Great activity for hiking kids: Animal Clues

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Great activity for hiking kids: Animal Clues

"It likes honey." Photo courtesy of David Niblack, Imagebase.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 Animal Clues.

In this variation of Twenty Questions, have one of the hikers secretly select an animal (preferably one that might be seen where you’re hiking) and give a clue about it. The other members of the party try to guess the animal to win. If after five clues no one can guess the animal, the one giving clues wins.

Materials: None needed

Ages: 4 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.