Some walks need a destination. Most just need a small job. These twelve cards each give your child one thing to do outside: find something smaller than a fingernail, count the sounds you hear with your eyes closed, sniff a leaf and the soil after rain, look for paw prints, or guess how many hugs it takes to get around a tree. Pick one at the door, read it out, and let the walk go wherever the card leads.
Every card has three levels. The main prompt suits most preschoolers. The line with the sprout mark is for two- and three-year-olds who point, name and touch. The line with the sapling mark is a stretch for five- to seven-year-olds who like to predict, measure and explain. Card 12 is blank, so your child can invent a challenge for next time, or for you.
The cards print six to a page with clear dashed cutting lines, on Letter or A4. A cut-and-fold pocket keeps them together so they come along on every walk, and the last page is a simple record for back home: circle the cards you used, draw the best thing you noticed and finish the sentences “I noticed”, “I wonder” and “Next time”.
What’s inside
- 1Cover: what's inside and a log for your first card walk
- 2Before you start: how to play, three ways to play and safety notes
- 3Senses cards 1 to 6: look, listen, sky, touch, colour and smell
- 4Explorer cards 7 to 12: tiny homes, wind, shadows, tracks, a tree hug and your own card
- 5Card pocket: cut, fold and glue a pocket, plus three games with the deck
- 6My curiosity walk: circle the cards, draw what you noticed and tell it back
Why this matters
Young children notice more when they have one small, clear job. A card turns an ordinary walk into an investigation without making it a lesson, and the questions on it (how can you tell, which way, how many) are the beginnings of scientific thinking. Telling the story afterwards builds memory and vocabulary, and a deck your child can hold and choose from gives them a real say in where the walk goes.
Age bands
Every activity page has an easier and a stretchier way in, marked with these bands:
- Sprout 2–3
- Seedling 3–5
- Sapling 5–7
Letter is the standard paper size in North America; A4 is used almost everywhere else.