Learn Together

Creating an imaginary “hiking trail” helps your child learn to focus and concentrate while exploring their current environment in new ways. 

Materials

  • Space to move around
  • Household items: Pillows, pots, cardboard boxes, tablecloths, blankets, sheets, toys, kitchen utensils, etc. 
  • Paper
  • Crayons, colored pencils, or markers
  • Flowers, plants, or leaves
  • Book
  • Binoculars (optional)

Imagine Together

It can sometimes be hard to get outside, but it’s important to stay active even when you’re indoors. Make staying indoors an adventure as you reimagine your home into a hiking trail using household items.

  • Gather household items of different size, shape, and color to create your own hiking trail. 
  • Let’s lay out our hiking trail. What kind of terrain is on your hike? Terrain means a stretch of land and its different features. 
    • In your terrain are there hills? Are there boulders and rocks?  Use pillows, pots, and cardboard boxes to represent hills, boulders, or rocks. 
    • Are there valleys? Is there a lake nearby? Use tablecloths, blankets, and sheets to create flat valleys or twist and swirl them to create lakes, rivers, and streams.
    • What about wildlife? What kinds of animals and plants will you see on your hike? Gather toys or kitchen utensils and place them throughout your terrain. Hide them under pots and pillows to discover later on!
  • Now enjoy your trail! With some paper and crayons, colored pencils, or markers, stop along your hike to draw what you’ve imagined. Write down what you see on your imaginary hike. 
  • Share what you’ve created! Take your family on a walking tour of the world you’ve imagined. Make sure they know what animals to be on the lookout for and where along the trail they need to watch their step!

If you can, take the adventure outside! Explore the outdoors by looking closely at nature. Bring binoculars if you have them! What flowers do you see? What leaves, rocks, and stones do you notice? What animals can you find?

Keep the adventure going by creating a nature press:

  • Take a walk outside and pick some flowers, plants, or leaves.
  • When you get back home, take your flowers and put them inside of a book, right in the middle. 
  • Press the book closed and come back in a day or two to discover what your flowers, plants, or leaves look like now!