Family Nature Walk: 15 Fun and Interesting Ideas

Spring is just around the corner and the weather is already getting warmer. It's time to dust off those hiking boots and journey back out into nature. My family enjoys taking nature walks, together. Not only is it nice to get out of the house and take in some fresh air, it's also good to get away from the chaos of everyday life and reconnect with each other and with the Earth. Taking a few hours to discover and remember what nature has to offer.

Sometimes the idea of going on a nature walk with the family doesn't sound so fun. To some it might seem boring. To others it can seem like a bit of a hassle, having to deal with the kids. What does one do when the child is tired of walking and you're in the middle of a trail? We've used a stroller in the past, but have come to prefer using a sling for the baby or a hiking pack instead. To help get you excited about this great bonding experience, I'm going to share some of the things my family and I enjoy doing on our walks.

1. Check the weather. It's important to check the weather before heading out. Not just to decide if you actually want to go out in the weather, but to also make sure that you're dressed appropriately. If it's going to be chilly out we make sure we wear long pants and have coats. If it's going to be hot we make sure we have on shorts, t-shirts or tank tops, and hats.

2. Make sure to pack the essentials. For us its water, diapers, wipes, a bag for dog clean up, and a camera. Making sure everyone is well hydrated is a huge factor in how enjoyable your journey will be. Get too hot, and there is going to be a lot of crankiness to deal with. Wipes are good not only for diaper duty, but also for cleaning off dirty hands and faces as well as cooling off hot necks and faces.

3. Play "I spy" with the kids. This helps encourage the kids to really look around and take in their surroundings. To be observant of even the smaller things. We've managed to spot frogs, deer, and other wild life while playing this on our walks. We've also spied lots of interesting plants.

4. Point out things to the kids. When my husband or I see something that interests us, we make sure to point it out to everyone else. We use it as an opportunity to share knowledge with our children and to share our own curiosity with them. Our kids love it. Recently we were at a local park and noticed pieces from an old broken down bridge. My husband took advantage of the discovery to teach the rest of us about the bridge and to teach our little ones about why we use bridges.

5. Take notes. Whether someone writes them down or takes them down mentally, remember to take notes. Maybe you saw something, but you weren't sure what it was. Or maybe your child asked you a question, but you didn't have the answer. Try to remember those things so that when you get home you can look them up with the kids. Our kids are always asking questions so when we get home we try to make sure we sit down with them and find the answers, if we didn't have them before. Some examples would be, "What tree did this seed come from?" "What makes a tree knot?" "What animal made this track?" "What animal lives in this burrow?" It's a good way to teach your kids about researching and studying and it helps them to know that they can ask you about things they're unsure of. Hopefully they'll keep feeling that way, even when they're teenagers!

6. Take pictures and let the kids take some too. Taking pictures is always a fun way to remember something. We take a lot of pictures when we go out. Some of the pictures are of us being silly and with our surroundings, but we also like to capture the beauty of nature. We take pictures of the waterfalls and river beds. The rock formations and the trees. We take pictures of the animals and the spiders. Whatever captures our eyes. Letting the kids take pictures too, gives us a chance to see through their eyes, the world around us. It's a fun way to get a new perspective and it gives us something to talk about later. Like "What intrigued you to take a picture of this?" "How did you feel when you took this picture?" And it's also a good way to remind you of questions you wanted to look up answers for. Having a visual reminder of what something looked like so you can find details on it.

7. Collect specimens. Maybe you've found a bug that the kids want to know more about, or frog eggs they'd like to watch hatch. Maybe it's a skull that the kids want to know what animal it came from. Collecting specimens, as long as it's not illegal, is a great way to encourage science and research skills with your kids and it's a lot of fun. Recently we came across the skull of a smaller animal. The kids wanted to take it home and look up what animal it was from. My husband decided this was a good idea. Together they learned how to clean the skull and preserve it. They're pretty sure it was either an opossum or a raccoon. I don't know if they actually figured out which yet.

8. Tell stories while you walk. When you're out on a trail, there are a lot less distractions for your kids and they tend to listen a bit better. I take those times to tell my kids stories from my childhood, or ones I make up or have heard. They love to hear them and will even make up their own, now. When they aren't making their own up, they're opening up about other things that have happened in their life recently that they might not have told us. The other day my oldest was telling us about all the things she learned about owls at school. Some of the things she told us, we'd never known before.

9. Play the sing-song game. This is a game my kids and I play. We take turns singing a song. Sometimes we let the others pick our song, sometimes we sing something we already know, and sometimes we make it up as we go. In this case we would either sing something about nature in general or we'd pick something specific to sing about and we'd make something up. An example would be a song about deer. "Oh where are the deer? We want to see a deer. Hello little deer! Come out and play!" That would be a typical song from one of my kids. They love it and so do I.

10. Stop when your kids stop. Listen when they talk. Look when they show you something. There are plenty of times during our walks when one of our kids will suddenly stop. Sometimes, we just want to keep going, but we stop anyway because usually it means the child has found something that interests them. Giving them a chance to check it out encourages their curiosity. When they talk to us about all the stuff they think about our walk, it's sometimes hard to listen, but we do it anyways because it makes our kids feel good and we end up learning a lot. The last walk we went on our kids told us about animals they thought lived in a burrow and what they thought some Canadian geese were doing. It was a chance to see our journey through their eyes. Whenever our girls stop to look at something, they always want to show us what they've found. Thanks to them we've seen interesting spiders, fungi, plants, animal tracks, and so much more. It makes them feel good when they see us showing interest in the things that interest them.

11. Ask them questions. Asking your kids questions as you walk along is a great way to interact with them and keep the walk lively. We like to ask our kids all sorts of stuff. Like the other day when we saw a tree that had formed circles with its roots. I asked the kids "How do you think the tree did that? Why did it do that?" We ask them their thoughts on the things we see. We ask them to tell us what they think happened to cause certain things. We love hearing their answers and giving them our answers in return. It really inspires them to learn more and to want to know more.

12. Bring walkie talkies. I only say this one because it they can be useful sometimes. My husband and first born are much faster walkers and then the rest of us. Because of that, there are times when they get so far ahead of us, that they don't always want to come back and look when we find something interesting. This tends to upset our second born. How does having walkie talkies help that situation? It'd give our second born a chance to explain to them, without having to yell at them and have them not totally understand, what it is she has found. It's also handy incase us slower walkers need the speedy ones to slow down. Sometimes when I try to yell at my husband to slow down, he doesn't always hear me.

13. Be sure to rest. Resting is very important, especially if you have smaller children like I do. It gives everyone a chance to take a few breaths and sometimes cool off and have some water. If we don't stop every now and then to rest we end up with at least one cranky little one on our hands, and that's not very fun.

14. Have a picnic. It doesn't have to be a full blown meal. Bringing snacks and making it a special resting period is just as fun. Having a snack about midway through our walks helps boost our energy levels and helps keep the kids from getting too tired before we're done. This helps keep them from getting cranky too. Not only that, but kids love picnics. There is just something about sitting down in the grass and taking a moment to enjoy some food that's pleasant.

15. Take your time. Though walking is a good way to exercise, don't feel a need to rush along a trail. Take it slow and breathe in everything you can. When my husband and oldest child get into a hurry and go walking quickly down a path, they end up missing out on a lot. Thankfully the rest of us walk a bit more leisurely and so we're able to see things and let the others know about it. Taking a nature walk isn't about a "Been there done that" attitude. It's about getting out there and reconnecting with your family, with yourself, with nature, and whatever else. It's about taking in the world around you and letting go of all the bad things in the world.

I hope this has inspired you and given you some ideas for your next nature walk. Nature walks are a great way to help your children learn and grow. Just as importantly, they're a great way to bond with them and create fun memories. Now get on out there and have fun!