How can we make the most of being out and about when your friends aren’t available? Why not incorporate some challenge ideas instead?  Here are some great ideas to get you started.

  1. Go for a Rating Walk – before you set out, decide what criteria you will use to rate houses, other buildings, trees or street furniture then rate them as you see them.
  2. Essential Workers – spot key workers to life, discuss why they are essential. What would be the effects if they stopped working?
  3. Keep a Record of your Walks – record how far you go each day, how long you walk for, variations in the route. Make comparisons, create a graph. Discuss if there is any pattern or reason for differences. Make notes about what you see; general weather conditions, numbers of people/dogs/cars out. Are there differences in people’s behaviour as time goes on? What differences, why may those be?
  4. Change Spotting – look for changes as you walk; a cat prowling, a bird landing on a branch, the branch bending under the weight of the bird, leaves blowing in the wind, a car going past, an insect crawling.
  5. 20 Questions – one of you spots something in the distance and others ask yes/no answer questions to try and find out what it is.
  6. Go for an Observation Walk – notice all the intriguing sights along your walk that can be written about, journal style, when you get home. What was going on during the walk today?
  7. Seasonal Watching – notice all the signs of Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter that you can along your walk, then on later walks look to see how they’ve changed. What flowers are blooming that weren’t blooming last week? What plants have lost leaves? What flourishes in high or low temperatures? What reasons might there be for plants to bloom at different times?
  8. Special Tree – choose a tree that is a distance from your house and return to the tree regularly to view different aspects of it and see what changes there have been. Notice the texture and colour of the bark, the buds as they develop into leaves, the shade and shelter it gives, whether anything lives in it or lands on it, its silhouette in wintertime.
  9. Phonic Eye Spy – challenge yourself to spot things on your walk that end with a specific phonic sound group  – s, a, t, i, p, n. / ck, e, h, r, m, d / g, o, u, l, f, d / ai, j, oa, ie, ee, or / z, w, ng, v, oo, oo / y, x, ch, sh, th / qu, ou, oi, ue, er, ar
  10. Questions Only – On your walk you can only ask questions. You can only answer with another question, answers aren’t allowed. Questions may be about what you see or about other topics in your thoughts. You may wish to pursue the answers when you get home.