As we enter week 4 of shelter in place, we have used every mode of transportation to go around our neighborhood. Bikes, scooters, tricycles, strollers, pushed baby doll strollers, run, walked and even used dusted off the double stroller that was in the donate pile. By the end of this week, it was like pulling teeth to get the kids to go outside so I decided to add something different into our walks. Here are a few ideas that hopefully help you "spice" up your usual walk. My kids are young so my examples are tailored for them (2, 5 and 8 years old) but you can create your own by just coming up with harder clues (types of cars, license plates, certain paint color on houses etc).
Scavenger hunts! 1) Print out a list (see pic for the one we used)
I found this list and then printed it out and taped it onto the kids scooters. I brought pens and we checked them off the list as we scooted around the neighborhood
2) Pick an object that you can all find together. Such as flags, gnomes, fountains, bird feeders etc. Then pick a number such as "10 flags" and keep walking until you find them all. We got this idea from friends of ours who we are scavenger hunt pros (thanks Irvins!)
Obstacle course using side walks and driveways Have your kids try to balance on a small sidewalk, skip on 1 leg when they hit a driveway, walk on their hands and knees across a lawn, walk with 1 eye closed, walk, jump over cracks.
For toddlers, bring a bucket or basket and have them collect flowers or rocks My toddler loves to take "nature" walks around our neighborhood and gets down on her hands and knees looking for rollie pollies and "special" rocks. She loves to collect them in her basket and then we bring them home and she washes everything with dish soap with a small sponge. For the sponge, I just bought regular sponges and cut them in 4 and we use them quite a bit for washing her baby dolls in the bath and random other things. I found an old box and we put stickers on it and she saves the treasures she finds in there.
Comments