I don’t typically have a hard time motivating my kids to go on a hike or get outside, but sometimes they need a bit of encouragement. Especially if you visit the same spots. It may come in handy to have some tactics to renew the adventure. Little minds thrive off of enrichment and variation. Here’s a few ideas to take your adventure up a step.
1. Toys! Specifically figures like dinosaurs, animals, mermaids, etc.
I can’t take credit for this first idea, as it is one I adopted from one of my best friends. He would share his hikes on Facebook and he would take small dinosaur figures, pose them in nature, and take pictures. I loved it! With four kids we had quite the selection of dinosaur and various other animal figures in our years long collection, so one day when we went for a hike I told my kids to round some of them up to take with us. They just thought they were going to take them to play, but once we got on our hike I showed them an example of setting them up in a cool spot and taking a picture to capture a unique image. They took this idea and RAN with it! I have, perhaps, too many photos on my phone from this idea. There are so many benefits to this. They get to immerse themselves in the scenery, slow down and take it all in. They get to express their own vision and create their own micro-stories. I highly recommend using this idea to your advantage.
2. Foraging
This is a more traditional take. I recently purchased some bottle shaped stickers/bookmarks from the Tik Tok shop. It’s a clear sticker with a clear backing, so that you can take little flowers or leaves, put them in the sticker, seal it up and make your own bookmark. They’ve take a bit of a learning curve, they work better if you let your items dry out and flatten them before you put them in the sticker, but it’s a cute idea regardless. You don’t even need these ones, you can just respectfully take any fallen leaves or flowers or whatever they may like, and learn to press them when they get home. You can then laminate them yourself or something similar. I would like to note, please be respectful of nature and teach your littles to only take what has fallen. You can also use this a teaching opportunity to learn about local plants. Kiddos love little treasures and this is a great way to preserve them and make a memory from your adventure.
3. Photography
This one relates to my number 1 idea. Get some disposable cameras, or perhaps if you have old digital cameras you can use those as well. I like using disposable cameras because it teaches my kiddos that they have a limited number of shots (unlike our phones that they can be so used to snapping 100 images with). Let them take pictures of whatever they want, whatever they think is beautiful. This allows you to see the world from your children’s eyes. It can also be a great teaching moment to help them learn components of photography.
There are a variety of ways to get your kids engaged in nature and outdoor adventures, these are just a few that we have personally done that work and are effective. If you have any other tips and tricks let me know, I would love to hear them!
