How to Get Toddlers and Preschoolers to Enjoy Family Walks
If you’re looking for an easy way to motivate your kids and get them excited for your next family walk, hike or adventure, here it is:
Add an element of wildlife – kids love creatures.
We, as adults, often focus on the views and the environment, which can definitely be fun for kids, but younger children especially have a real love for seeing animals in nature.
How To Get Kids to Hike Further
I always find that if the kids know there is an animal at the ‘destination’ they will be far more motivated to keep walking. Without rewards and snacks! Often they’ll even run ahead! We often use fish, eels, turtles, kangaroos, koalas or ducks as motivators, but if you’re sure of some other cool creatures then definitely use those too! Younger children love crabs, fish, insects, turtles, starfish, and other creatures they see on television or read about in books. You could also read up about these creatures beforehand if you want to turn it into more of a learning experience for the kids, particularly preschoolers. It will depend on the kid – some love to learn about the animals so they know what to look for, others are only motivated once they’ve seen the animal (or tried to find it) so they can then learn more about it.
Repeating Family Walks Throughout the Seasons
You might think doing the same walk over and over again would get boring for kids, but the opposite can be true when there is wildlife involved. Animals are always unpredictable, so there is an element of having to ‘hunt’ for the creatures, curiosity in what they’re doing, and delight in the familiarity. The more you do these walks, the more you can start to look for elusive or uncommon species and changes in seasons.
Also, younger children tend to like routine and familiarity. The familiar setting with the unpredictability of nature is the perfect balance for toddlers and preschoolers. Older kids might prefer more surprises and challenges when out exploring, but younger kids can really thrive when they feel safe and comfortable in a familiar environment.
Family Walks near Water - Creeks, marinas, lakes, ponds and waterfalls
Learning more about the local wildlife we spotted on our family walk around the Coffs Harbour Jetty and Marina, NSW.
Simply pack some old bread and head to a walk near water. You can find a lake, a pond, a dam, a marina or even a little creek. Get the kids to crush up the bread into smaller crumbs and throw them into the water, then wait and see what appears. You might discover fish, tadpoles, eels or even turtles!
This is one of the easiest ways to make any walk more exciting for toddlers and preschoolers. Of course you’ll have to watch them closely near the edge of any deep water, but that’s as easy as having a hand on them while they’re throwing in bread.
When my children were younger, between 1 to 5, they absolutely loved seeing the fish and eels appear. We found that when cousins or friends visited from the city, even the older children were super excited, because they didn’t normally get to see animals in nature.
Feeding fish is a great way to get your kids out walking further too. It’s one of those activities for the holidays, when the parents want to go for a nice walk with a view, or through a botanic garden or parkland, and the kids are getting tired or bored. That motivation to ‘get to the pond’ or ‘go feed the fish’ is a handy trick to have up your sleeve.
Family Hikes in the bush, rainforest or mountain regions (etc)
The same principle applies no matter what sort of landscape you’re in. Find out what sort of wildlife are present in those areas you want to walk through. Try to think of ones you will be very likely to see, not just rare bird species. Think about the most common creatures – for toddlers it will be far better to actually spot the animal than to do the whole walk without finding anything. Toddlers don’t have that sort of stamina.
Think about bugs, insects, common birds and mammals you will be likely to see. Then let them know you’re going to try and find some together. You could even make a ‘bingo chart’ with the most common creatures on that walk. Get your little ones to stamp off each creature they spot on the hike.
Here are some examples in our life:
There is a bowerbird who collects blue things for its nest at our local botanic gardens. We have left out blue things for it, and then the next time we visited we checked to see if the blue things were in the nest.
You can see where birds have nests, and watch for babies.
You can try to spot elusive creatures. We always look for koalas, and it’s a very exciting moment when we find one.
We often find starfish when we explore local rockpools, but sometimes we can’t find any. Other times we’ve found octopuses and even a sea turtle!
Searching for whales on the horizon in the right season.
We go looking for cicadas during summer.
Instead of avoiding familiar paths, instead try to find out about the local wildlife and their natural habits during different seasons. Of course you can do the same for trees and plants if you have strong seasonal changes throughout the year. My kids delight in seeing wattle flowering in winter because they know how much I love it.
The best way to use up sandwich crusts as an adventure family
Feeding the fish turned into feeding the seagulls our sandwich scraps while doing a rainy day family walk at the Urunga Boardwalk, Urunga NSW.
If your younger children don’t like eating crusts, then save up those leftovers in a bag in the freezer. When you go on your next walk, grab the crusts and take them to feed fish, seagulls or even turtles! Sometimes if we’ve packed a picnic, I don’t even need to bring saved up leftovers because I know my son will leave his crusts. It’s a great way to make use of leftovers/scraps.
Keep in mind, plenty of people have a big problem with feeding bread to ducks, or other food to wildlife. (I’ve never seen a duck have a problem with it though!) If bread isn’t healthy for your local wildlife, then grab something else you feel better about, like lettuce or oats. Don’t feed animals in a national park. And keep in mind that people are less critical of feeding fish and tadpoles than birds!
My kids love walking along paths where we’ll get to spot local kangaroos! This is at the Emerald Beach headland walk, Coffs Harbour NSW.
Our Family’s Experience Getting Up Close with Nature on the Coffs Coast
If you’re looking for some great places to feed local fish and spot turtles or eels around Coffs Harbour, NSW, then here are our favourite spots to stop on a walk:
Urunga boardwalk (loads of big and little fish – and seagulls). We also enjoy seeing the hermit crabs moving around at low tide, and spotting lizards sunning themselves on the rocks at the end of the boardwalk.
Coffs Harbour Regional Botanic Gardens (there are turtles and eels in the Japanese Garden lake, and those giant goldfish at the pond near the front entrance.) We’ve also seen owls here. Apparently you can spot koalas, but I’m yet to be so lucky!
The Marina in the Coffs Harbour Jetty area (BIG fish and little fish, and they are FUN because they jump and splash quite a bit).
The Look at Me Now Headland is a great spot to see kangaroos.
Finding starfish and other rockpool creatures at the base of the Sawtell Headland
Most smaller creeks have some sort of little guppy fish too.
Any headland makes a great walk, picnic spot and whale watching viewing platform during winter.
Read Next:
Introducing ‘Adventure Days’ (Beginning to Hike With Kids)