Geocaching with Kids – Lesson Plans

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]

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It might seem weird to feature a book about protest movements around the Fourth of July, but as Rise Up! Powerful Protests in American History reminds us, protest is patriotic and part of the very fabric of American life from the beginning.

This picture book, written by history teacher Rachel C. Katz and illustrated by Sophie Bass, tells a rhyming story of how Americans have stood up throughout the nation’s history to protest and spread the word about injustice and unsafe conditions. From the Boston Tea Party to modern movements like the Standing Rock pipeline protests and the Obergefell case, it touches on women’s rights, environmental activism, civil rights, Pride, access for disabled people and more.

The illustrations, often based on historic protest signs and artwork, help tell the stories, while a timeline, map, and overview of each event for further discussion. Readers will learn about Silent Spring and The Jungle, the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike, the Seneca Falls convention, Robert Smalls, the Delano Grape Strike and the movement to un-dam the Klamath River, to name a few.

Each event includes a few bullet points to provide context about what happened, why and what the result was. The book reminds readers that protests are not always effective, or don’t always get the people involved what they want right away (since it took women 72 years to get the right to vote after Seneca Falls, for example).

This book is a great way to introduce kids to the long and proud history of protest movements in the United States and could prompt discussions about current events and things happening that they might want to see changed. It could also be used to start kids researching different protests discussed in the book for further learning. You can talk about how art can educate people and encourage kids to make their own art pieces to educate others about something important to them.

Rise Up! is a great starting point for learning about the history of protest and the effects it has had on American history. The publisher’s website has more resources for teaching with this book at the link below.

About the book: 48 pages, hardcover. Published 2025 by Barefoot Books. Suggested retail price $17.99.

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