Some of our favorite things to do are spending time outdoors. Our favorite new family activity is letterboxing. I can't blog enough about letterboxing. It basically combines hiking with treasure hunting. You get clues from letterboxing.org and then try to find a box that is hidden in the woods. Inside the box is usually a log-book and a stamp. You stamp your book with their stamp and their stamp with your stamp that you carry. You should bring in a bag a logbook, clues, a stamp, stamp pad, pen trail snacks (you'll never know when you are going to be stuck in the woods for five hours), bottled water and a compass. We've been doing this since our girls were 2.5 to 5.5 years old. And amazing, while they may complain for normal everyday walking that they are too tired, they never complain about being out in the woods.
In addition to (as my pediatrician says) teaching them great lifestyle habits (as hiking is a great physical activity) they are learning all sorts of things about science. Nature wise, we have seen red-tailed hawks, frogs, toads, deer, chip monks, red squirrels, salamanders, great blue herrings, and woodchucks. The girls are learning how to read a compass, what to do if lost in the woods (we always carry a cell phone, but need to pack a whistle) - such as following a river downstream to a road/body of water, how to find adequate shelter if needed - what plants are safe to at and also which should be avoided.
But most of all, we all enjoy spending time together as a family. For more of our letterboxing stories, click the letterboxing tag at the bottom of this post.
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What are your favorite family activities and how do you find the quality family time?
And if you don’t have quality family time, how do you make up for it? What challenges do you face?
Write and post today by midnight and you will automatically be entered to win a Wii game system and/or "Boggie," a new video game where you get up and move. Or as the girls say "shake your booty, shake your booty..."
3 comments:
I would love to letterbox---I think my husband would like to Geocache (I think it is similar but features a high-tech gadget that he would like!). How old was your youngest when you started? I'm a bit worried that my youngest wouldn't be big enough for the hikes, but hope to be able to do this some time.
My youngest is almost three, so he was 2.5 when we started.
We're going to have to try it. A lot of my friends are really into it.
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