6 Ways To Keep The Kids Happy When Outdoors

You probably know that me and my family love to be outdoors, we are also out and about, trying somewhere new or re-visiting one of our favourite places.

It can be hard to keep young children entertained though, they get bored or tired when your walking, maybe fed up of the pram!

Here’s our 6 fab ways to keep the kids happy when your off on a walk in the Great outdoors.

1.Go for a ‘nature walk’.

My eldest son, Joshua loves a trail or a treasure hunt. Lots of places often have organised ones to keep the kids entertained, usually at the end you receive a sticker for example. If not, we like to make up our own! Joshua usually has a backpack when we go for a walk, full of toys and binoculars haha, but also a notepad. We wrote a listen of items for us to spot on our way, all things found outdoors, all things to do with nature. Joshua enjoys writing the list himself, we look for all sorts from birds, certain trees, squirrels to pine cones and berries. Lots of fun.

2.Collect things on your way.

I’m sure this one annoys daddy, but the kids love collecting things! My three always seem to have a stick in their hand and a couple of stones in the other, do yours? So, on a walk to keep them interested, we look for items that we could take home and reuse. Some things we will use in art and crafts so for example we might make a picture with lots of leaves, we have also collected lots of sticks and the kids made a little den for a hedgehog. The kids also love collecting shells when we’re at the beach and little pebbles. I always have a boot full of stones, sticks, pine cones and shells, always!

3.Enjoy a ‘welly walk’.

There’s nothing better than jumping in muddy puddles! My kids do like to get muddy, they aren’t bothered getting covered in it, they even like digging in the mud! So to keep everyone happy, we like to put on our wellies and the kids waterproof suits and go for a welly walk. I find this a great way of getting my younger two interested in walking, we get them to move from one puddle to another, looking for a bigger puddle to jump in!

4.Play games.

Everyone loves a game of I-Spy and it’s really easy to do on a walk! From Aeroplanes to Zebras (if you were walking through the zoo) you can make this game last all day! If you get fed up of that you can change the game to spot things of a certain colour or how many of something you see!

5.Hide and look for painted rocks.

We are a big lover of #pebbleart. We’ve even made our own #outandaboutmummyrocks rocks! We started to find painted rocks a few summers ago along the promenade in Morecambe. Suddenly they started to pop up everywhere we go. Why do paint some of you own rocks and head out to hide them. The kids will love painting and hiding them, plus any they find would be a bonus! Keeps the kids active, stops the moaning on walks and is so much fun! Check out some local pages on Facebook including #Chaddyrocks and #Tamesiderocks

6.Geocaching – what’s that?

We started Geocaching last spring when a good friend introduced us to it. It’s a treasure hunt using GPS, we have an app on my phone and using clues find ‘caches’. My son would say the best caches are the ones with little tupperware boxes filled with toys! We always carry a little bag of treasure when we’re off geocaching, so we can swap some treasure! The kids love it, plus me and my husband are a little hooked!

I hope I’ve given you a few ideas that make you want to get outdoors with your little ones! What do you and your family like to do outdoors? Why not share with us via Facebook or Twitter.

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