Spicing Up Our Walks

Sometimes I need to get creative to get everyone motivated for a walk. Even on the nicest days it seems that the kids would rather play in the yard than take a walk--or one wants to walk and the other does not. But, the dog needs a walk and I need a walk and everyone is always happy once we get started. It occurred to me recently that without even thinking about it I have been coming up with little themes or games that make the walk more interesting. We don't have many options as to where we walk around the house so I do need to spice it up a bit. Simply picking flowers along the way lost its appeal so I grabbed two pairs of little scissors and a vase full of water. Cutting wild flowers and arranging them right away was really fun, and now we have some flowers for some other projects I have been thinking about.

Something else we have been having fun with is a dicewalk. I got the inspiration for this via the Artful Parent, one of my very favorite blogs. Instead of arrows and left right directives, I wrote instructions such as "march", "sing", "be an animal", "pick a flower", "skip" and so on. It is half a mile to the nearest intersection, so we would have to take a very long walk in order to get our fill of tossing the die. I did not follow the instructions for making the box, it was thrown together in 3 minutes so it is sloppy and uneven--but it is covered in packing tape and seems to be bomb proof. the kids take turns throwing it. Hollin can sound out the words a little which adds even more excitement.

Sometimes I make a smoothie for them to take or suggest we have a rainbow hunt, where we look for something of each color of the rainbow. We sing songs, tell stories, look for critters or play I spy.
I would love some more ideas, so please share what you do on your walks with your kids.