[One Day Ten Thousand Steps, One Day One Thousand Characters] Fun Ways to Walk with Your Children

Walking season is perfect for building family bonds by strolling near home, in parks, forest trails, or playgrounds with your children. When walking with young children, preparing a ‘walking game’ can make the walk more enjoyable. What kinds of walking games can capture your child's interest during a walk?

It’s helpful to bring a magnifying glass to closely observe plants and insects while walking. Your child can learn in advance about the properties of convex lenses, which they will study in school science class. You can also bring a notebook to draw pictures or use a phone to take photos to keep records of your observations. To boost your child’s creativity, you can create sentences incorporating the names of various natural things you encounter during the walk.

There are many simple games as well. You can designate a leader and follow their walking posture, speed, and sounds, or pause walking when agreed-upon sounds like bird calls occur. You can alternate between different walking styles such as walking fast, walking slowly, walking backward, walking sideways, or walking barefoot.

Walking

Small tools can also be used. For example, you can hide small objects like stones or dice in your hand or pocket and play a guessing game called “Twenty Questions.” While walking, you ask and answer questions with your child about whether the object is hard, edible, or what shape it has. Another method is to carry a ball and pass it back and forth while walking.

You can also count steps. Using a walking app or pedometer, you can set a target number of steps or set start and end points to see how far you have walked.

Recently, environmentally conscious walking has become a new trend. ‘Plogging,’ which involves picking up trash while walking, is a representative example. It started gaining popularity in Korea right after COVID-19 in 2020. Due to increased delivery demand during social distancing, the use of disposable plastics surged, raising environmental pollution concerns. Competing to pick up trash and taking ‘proof shots’ turns it into a fun game.

With COVID-19 becoming endemic, local governments have resumed walking events. These events usually take place during the pleasant weather from April to June, so applying with your family to build unity is a good idea.