Geocaching with Kids

August 19 is National Geocaching Day, but we’re heading into a great time of year throughout the world for geocaching. If you’ve never done it, or never heard of it, geocaching is like a big outdoor treasure hunt. People place “caches” in various designated locations, which you can get coordinates for using an app.

The app uses the GPS on your phone to direct you to the location of the cache, which can be anything from a plastic bag to a fake rock with a hidden compartment. All caches have a log book, so you should bring a pen to sign it, but a lot of caches also include little trinkets or special items. You can simply enjoy looking at these items, or you can take an item if you leave something of equal value in trade.

It’s a great way to make a hike or time in nature a little more fun for kids, and lets them live out their treasure hunting dreams (and maybe yours, too!).

You might be surprised at how many caches are available where you are (the page linked above tells me there are more than 700 in my town alone!) and the app ranks the caches by difficulty, both in terms of how hard it is to find the cache and how hard it is to get to where the cache is located.

Run Wild My Child has a great post all about geocaching with kids, and it notes that the free version of the geocaching app only shows easy caches, which is great when you’re doing it with kids. Tales of a Mountain Mama also advises that you check that a cache was found recently, because sometimes they do disappear and you don’t want that kind of disappointment when kids are around.

It’s always a good idea to bring a pen, and maybe some paper, and some little trinkets to drop in the caches you find, but Geocaching.com has a great post with some other things you might want to pack when you go hunting for caches.

Have you ever done geocaching with kids? I’d love to hear about your experience.

[Photo: Run Wild My Child]

Learning numbers actually involves a few different skills, from recognizing the shape of the number and knowing the word that goes with it to understanding one to one correspondence for counting and what order the numbers go in.

A lot of this is learned best through play and activities that get kids counting and tracing and otherwise interacting with numbers. These activities can help.

I specifically mentioned tracing above because of these number formation rhymes cards from Teaching Mama, which can be used in lots of ways to practice making the shapes of the numbers, including tracing, lining up items on the number shapes (and counting them!), using playdough to shape the numbers and so on. Each number has a little rhyme to help you remember how to make it, which is cute.

And speaking of playdough, you can find lots of playdough number mats with different themes for kids to use as they learn about numbers. Preschool Play and Learn, for example, has these cute apple themed ones that also teach one to one correspondence as you learn the numbers and count to 10.

Or use these tree-themed ones from Live Over Cs to form the numbers, count out items on a ten frame and place the correct number of items in the tree to match the number (do this with playdough, little buttons or whatever manipulatives you have on hand). Your little builders will also love these Duplo number mats from Life Over Cs, which allow you to shape the number out of blocks and count out the number of blocks that corresponds to each number.

I also love these mats from The Savvy Sparrow that include the number and the word you can trace with playdough or marker, showing how to count the number on your fingers, a tens frame and a number line.

Finger plays and counting songs are lots of fun for little ones, too, and Childhood 101 has a great collection of songs and rhymes having to do with numbers (as well as printable song cards you can use with them.

This cardboard roll number chain form Hands On As We Grow would be a fun addition to singing number songs or to use in other play and counting games. And we all love something easy to make with stuff we already have.

Older kids who already know the order of numbers can also use these connect the dot number printables from Fun Learning for Kids. Or use the shapes for playdough mats or to practice tracing even for kids who don’t know all the numbers in order yet.

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