Getting Kids to Take the Family Walk with You

I live in Europe, which is big on taking the FAMILY NATURE WALK on Sundays. It's completely normal here to go off into the woods or to the seaside, even in the dead of winter, for a walk with your kids/parents for a couple of hours before lunchtime on everyone's only day off (kids go to school on Saturday here). It's not every kid's favorite thing to do but parents love it.

One of the few innovations I saw at the Nuremberg toy fair was by a German company owned by a woman, who was probably a mom who saw a need to fill in her own life.

It is a classic walking stick, but kid size, with a Felted Pouch on it with a German design on it  (quite cute). The stick can double as a horse, of course, and inside the pouch you find a bunch of activities for creating your own fun on the walk. There are cards for creating a treasure hunt. There is a rope for measuring things, there is a magnifying glass for scientific discovery.

What an amazing idea. It is simple, but solves a problem and creates an EXPERIENCE (everyone's favorite word in the toy industry), even better, it creates moments to remember for a family. Fun!

The site is in German (for you Brainiacs who took German at school) and mainly focuses on her other products but they are brilliant too. Among them are products which parents can use to get kids to take their medicine (an elephant nose, a pilot's hat to keep in theme with flying the spoon into the kid's mouth, etc). Watch the videos on her site. Too funny.

Another product is a small box of games/activities that kids can play in bed when they are home sick from school.

www.lasumi.de