Geocaching With School-age Kids

January 13, 2005

Are there other Geocaching families out there? My kids love it (start 'em young) and we've even taken their friends along. Sharing stories and tips would be great! I feel like we are in the minority on this forum, but I bet there are as few of us!

Geocachin' Mama

1.6k · January 13, 2005

We do not exactally have children of our own to geocache with but at times we cache with Awsome Ev and the children she babysits for ( no clue's little shadows) and there Dad you guessed it No Clue. We find the children at times can be an asset esp when you just are lacking that small bit of reach to grab a cache , we just hoist one of them up and they promptly grab it . They love it !

We find the only thing is sometimes we need to pick and choose which caches are approiate to take along children and which would just be to much for them to handle.

Star of Team Tigger International

3.3k · January 13, 2005

She doesn't qualify as School age, but my daughter makes a great geocaching partner. http://img.Groundspeak.com/track/log/acf73...2f67f9bb4be.jpg

2.7k · January 13, 2005

Another good resource might be the GPS in Education forum. Don't frequent it much myself, not having my own kids, but I'll bet you'll find some like-minded folk in there.

Happy caching!

Edited January 13, 2005 by New England n00b

January 13, 2005

I cache 80% of the time with my 7 year old daughter and sometimes bring the 1 1/2 year old too. My oldest daughter enjoys the trinkets in the cache and it is a good way to get some exercise. Although she refuses to go on any hikes into the woods or forests.

When I bring her along I stop to take the time to enjoy the area and "smell the roses", otherwise I am in and out of the area in 2 seconds.

January 13, 2005

I just started into this and have done 2 caches by myself and then

went on 2 more with my 13 year old Daughter..

She thought it was cool except for when we had to go cross country

thru a game trail and ran into some spiders.

Also seeing a tick crawling down my shirt sleeve on the drive home freaked her out a bit..

Seeing her excitement going thru the Mctoys was more enjoyable than being there by my myself.

January 13, 2005

We have just started geocaching, as my hubby got a GPS for Christmas. He and I did our first two alone, then went back with our kids to let them find them themselves. (I figured this might cut down on any boredom factor, and help us get a feel if the kids really enjoyed it.)

Well, they loved, so the following weekend we went out as a family logged four more finds, including one multi-cache that they really loved.

I can't wait until the weather improves so we can do more. All of us are hooked now, especially the kids, and they're talking already about how cool it will be to find caches when we're on vacation this summer.

January 13, 2005

My wife, (Vic303) and I have three kids, 3 yrs, 19 months, 6 months old. Our three year old who is a hard charger by nature loves Geocaching! Our middle child is just happy getting out and about. Our 6 month old is thinking about whether or not she is having fun.

Caching with kids can be a trying experience, don't put your 18 month old in a backpack and attempt to go bushwhacking, (especially chasing after something that wasn't even there)!

Caching can be fun with them though, it often takes us to new parks and recreation areas that offer all sorts of play opportunities for them.

Semper Fi

January 13, 2005

I started geocaching with my 11 year old son's scout pack, he was 7 at the time. Sometimes he loves it when we are out, others he is like this:

photo taken by Planet

We do find he seems to enjoy being out more now that he has his own gps.

January 13, 2005

hydee, that's a classic! My own tend to be camera hounds ... I'd have the opposite problem, with all three trying to get their mugs up front!

January 13, 2005

I grew up hiking in the canyons around my childhood home, so I always wanted to get my kids involved in some of the same. Unfortunately, living in suburbia, it was hard to find the time or motivation. Then I stumbled across geocaching, and since I already had a GPS, decided to give it a try. On our first try, my son (then 9) and I found 2 caches, one requiring about a 2 mile hike. Can you say "HOOKED"?

Since then, my son (now 12) goes 100% of the time with me, and my youngest daughter (10) goes about 70-80% of the time. Last September, my son and I made a 12 mile hike to the top of the 2nd highest peak in SoCal for a virtual (our 100th find, woohoo!), and we are still loving it! :rolleyes:

My oldest daughter (16) however, wouldn't be caught dead hiking/geocaching, and we talked my wife into going only once; came across two 5' rattlesnakes on that outing, and that was the end of her caching career!

We've invited a couple of my son's friends a few times, but since we like the longer, tougher hikes, they generally don't return for a second cache outing since we tend to wear them out! And my brother-in-law joined us on our 12 mile, 12,000ft peak trek, but it just about killed him, so I think we scared him off, as well!

Edited January 13, 2005 by 4x4van

January 13, 2005

My lovely wife and I cache with our kids some. We spent all day New Year's Day and bagged 8 at a local park. It was great. We've got 4 kids, 3 girls, 11, 9 and 6 and a 3 year old boy. The 11 year old girl is too cool for anything currently (Uggh! Adolesence! :rolleyes: ) But the other 3 love it. The trading stuff really excited the youngest two. My nine year old enjoys the hunt.

I've done about 1/3 of the caches alone. Typically locationless (they don't get cache w/o a box) or when I've been gone on business trips.

It's a great way to get the family out in the woods and enjoy it.

January 13, 2005

I have five children: 10, 8, 6, 4, 2. I have taken the 4 oldest on most of my quest and they love it. They think they are finding buried treasure. The only bad hunt was in Okinawa when I made my oldest climb a steep hill covered with thick brush and spider webs w/spiders. He was really mad at me until he found the cache and got some cool trade item worth about $2.00

2k · January 13, 2005

When I travel on the road I go by myself. When I'm at home sometimes my 7 year old son and my wife go with me. When we all go we try to find caches that are in nice parks that are a decent but not difficult hike.

It also helps that my 7 year old son now figures my old yellow E-trex is his even though I don't remember giving it to him. :rolleyes:

I think the kids seem to enjoy it better when they can kind of be in charge.

January 13, 2005

My 2-yr (soon to be 3-yr) old son accompanies me on many a cache hunt:

We have accumulated an extensive collection of Hot Wheels cars through trading.

--Dave, The Cow Spots

3.9k · January 13, 2005

We have teenagers (aaagh!) and even they grudgingly admit that they enjoy it when they come along. Alex is 15 and he's generally up for it when he's not too tired (homework, drums, girls), Joanna is 13 and has more "attitude", but the other night she tagged along for a night cache and had a great time - the problem is getting her out of the house in the first place.

Once on the trail, there's plenty for everyone: working the GPS, reading the sheet, decoding the hint, and just enjoying the time together. That sounds really cheesy (especially to me) but it's really true...

1.6k · January 13, 2005

I'm the geocacher in the family, I have to drag along the rest of the family to many cache hunts. I'm 16.

January 13, 2005

We go out as a family. The girls are 7 and 3. They are definately into SWAG and get upset when we find micros that just have a log book. LOL!

2k · January 13, 2005

My kids love it! I even got another family into this as-well and they also go with us. My brother comes along when he is visiting or we visit him. So in all we have a 3 year old(mine), 5 year old, 6 year old, 7 year old(mine), 13 year old, 15 year old, 16 year old, and a 17 yeard old. Then we have 7 adults! FUN when we can all go togather!

1.3k · January 13, 2005

We routinely cache with five children. Three belong to my friends, two to me and my wife. Trinity is three, she is a handful, but also a real cutie pie. She is the inspiration for our team name. Sam is seven. He loves to geocache. Jasmine is ten. She enjoys the company and the camaraderie as much as finding the cache. My son Kevin is twelve and he would geocache every day if he could. He loves the hiking, and the thrill of the hunt! Whenever he goes he wants to take a friend or two. Sometimes we let him, but only if the other half of our crew doesn't go. There are nine of us when the two families go out together and sometimes stealth (or a lack thereof) is an issue, and we are forced to abandon search attempts. My daughter Lauren is almost 15 and she can take it or leave it.

All in all, I can't imagine having nearly as much fun without kids. When my friend Johnny and I cache on lunch break we rarelly trade anything, but when the kids are along they always find treasures they want to trade for!

January 14, 2005

We have 3 girls that we take with us most of the time. Our girls are 8, almost 5 and 2. They love it, especially the 8 and 2 year old. Our 5 yr. old is a little prissy, so she doesn't really like hiking and getting dirty, although she always grabs the cars/trucks out of the cache.

January 14, 2005

I have 2 boys, 8 and 10. Who like to go once in a while. It's a great activity to get the whole family outside. My older son has his own gps and really enjoys the hunt. The youngest seems to get tired and bored easy. Once in a while they bring thier friends with us. I'm really trying to introduce them to my hobbies hikeing, climbing, and camping. :rolleyes:

January 14, 2005

sorry duplicate post

Edited January 14, 2005 by jbar

1.5k · January 14, 2005

We usually go out as a team with our 11 year old son and 6 year old daughter. She complained some on our first few caches about how far we were hiking, but a few months ago, when we blew the directions to a small redirector, we heard not a negative peep out of her as we wandered for 3 hours in a wilderness preserve going over 6 miles!

They're all about the trading (Mom and I don't care so much) and other than some fights over who holds the GPSr "this time", we have a blast!

January 14, 2005

I started this to get some much neded exercise and thought that maybe my 7 year old daughter would like to tag along. Well she loved the hunt and the swag is a pure bonus. It turns out she has a good eye for finding well hidden caches. I'm pulling my hair out knowing it's got to be within 15 feet of me and she goes right up to it. Ah the blessing of young eyes :rolleyes:

We just hid our first cache and sent a travel bug on it's way to the southern hemishpere (Ursa Minoris). She's been real excited to see the replies of our caches finders.

She is also getting pretty profiecient in using the gps to get us to the cache. I'm teaching her how to use an orienteering compass.

All in all it's been a fun way to get the excercise and qt of spending time with my daughter.

On last thought, reading post of caches we've done, this seems to more of a family hobby than you'd expect.

Good hunting

January 14, 2005

We're just getting started geocaching, but my kids and I are having a great time! My son is 8 and daughter 5. Mom is busy with pursuing teacher licensing, so caching gets me and the kids out of the house so she can have some quiet study time. I'm sure she'll join us when "leisure time" returns to her vocabulary.

I had found a couple caches on my own before taking the kids. It took all of one cache find to get the kids hooked! Have you ever wondered who would want that silly little plastic billy goat worth about one-tenth of a penny? My daughter, that's who!

My son is totally obsessed with FTF's. We've had 2 so far, and he wants more! Should make things interesting'cause there's a LOT of competition for FTF's around here.

Right now, cache time is hard to come by, what with short days, school, sports, church, etc. But we're all looking forward to longer daylight so we can get out more in the evenings to hunt!

2.2k · January 14, 2005

My daughter Tigger Two is 12 and sometimes comes with me when the weather is warm. She does insist on bringing max the mad Dalmatian with us though.

max

Edited January 14, 2005 by mongoose39uk

January 14, 2005

We have a 14yo daughter, who rolls her eyes at us when we talk about geocaching. Totally uncool in her mind. LOL I guess if anyone ever placed a cache inside the mall, she'd probably be FTF, however.

Our 9yo son is quite excited about the whole thing, and goes with us most of the time.....once in awhile it's nice going with just the two Twizz's, instead of three or four.

(edited for grammar) LOL

Edited January 14, 2005 by Team Twizz

January 14, 2005

We just started after xmas, and I take kids along (8 and 12). My wife is not a winter person, but just some new winter boots and pants so she can come along too

It's a great family activity, and gets them away from the TV and video games for a while.

January 15, 2005

Our 7 year old daughter, M&M Girl loves to geocache She has created her own cache and loves to see who comes to visit. Her favorite part of caching is the travel bugs. She has several TB's and a geocoin that is in a race with 2 other coins. Geocaching is a great place to get them started with geography, especially if you release a few travel bugs. She loves to see and hear about the interesting places they have been to.

3.9k · January 15, 2005

There are a lot of geocaching families out there. Many never post to forums.

My 12 year old "moose" has good caching days, and bad caching days. It depends on what else she has to do or which friend is along this trip.

January 15, 2005

Most of my few finds have been with my kids. They love to go and climb all over and under things looking. In fact they can be obvious in areas where I would stand out and nobody pays attention. Just wish there were more caches close by and not 50 miles away. With all scouts and other family activities caching takes a back seat most the time. :lol:

January 15, 2005

I am the kid in our family and I am the one that goes out on 99.99% of our caching trips, and tries to goet everyone else interested

January 15, 2005

Hmm, yeah, Caching with our 3 kids is great, too bad the wife thinks I am the 4th kid.

January 15, 2005

A frequent geocaching buddy of mine is my niece, Messa, age 8. She absolutely enjoys, in her words and order: 1) spending time with my AuntieNae, 2) being outdoors, 3) spending time with friends, 4) playing on all the neat playground equipment we come across and 5) I find it interesting to learn about all the historical places.

My nephew, her brother, Mr. JubJub, age 10, will go with us but only for short trips to one or two caches.

We geocache with friends who have kids and find the kids have more fun at events when we are all together.

January 16, 2005

Greetings all.

I also cache with my 2 kids. Daughter is 3 and son is 6. Both just love going out and finding "treasure". Don't get to go out much right now due to the cold weather but as soon as it warms up the kids are always ready and geared up to go. :-)

January 16, 2005

Our 2 boys go geocaching with us also. They love to find the "treasures" and they also love putting treasures inside treasures found. Just don't do an all day event because kids can be very impatient at times :blink:

1.5k · January 16, 2005

Our 2- (Mini-I Ladybug) and 4-(Mini-V Ladybug) year old daughters have cached in New York and Alaska. Mini V is so into "treasure hunting" that she keeps conning Mommy Ladybug into buying things at the store that she brings home to Daddy Ladybug to turn into travel bugs to launch toward our relatives scattered around the Lower 48.

Caching with grandparents created a great 3-generation activity that brought out many wonderful stories as we traipsed through parks that the grandparents had played in as kids.

Edited January 16, 2005 by Ladybug Kids

January 16, 2005

I've found that kids are great cover! I've even been known to "rent" a kid when I'm out alone trying to get to a micro in a schoolyard! :lol: A 6'1" 220 pound man wandering around a playground aimlessly can be suspicious...but have a kid with you and all is right! :lol:

Vic and myself, along with the 2 monsters...err, I mean youngsters get some strange looks sometimes when we are "hot on the trail" but no one has questioned us yet because of the kids. Now, when Vic and myself are alone and walking into the woods...some people actually follow us thinking we are "up to something" and looking for a show...if you know what I mean! It's quite comical! :blink:

Like I said, Kids are great cover! :lol:

January 16, 2005

YES! Our 11 year old daughter and 8 year old son truely enjoy it. Our daughter is pretty darn good at finding them too. They even want their own GPS's!

January 16, 2005

I'm 16 and usually have to drag my parents away from what they are doin in order to go caching.

January 16, 2005

We have a local cacher who is a teacher in one of the Rio Grande Valley's elementary schools. They recently received a Government grant to buy TEN GPSr's.

He takes the kids out every week for a group hunt and says it's the best teaching tool he's ever used.

My granddaughter, Ashleigh (ID Ashbrook) is 9. She and SonMike are frequent cachers in the Houston area.

Yes! it's perfect for school-age kids.

January 16, 2005

I made it a firm rule when I started geocaching that I would always have at least one of my kids along with me. This forces me to slow down and enjoy each caching experience individually. We meander down the trails, wind up going through every single item in every single cache and taking lots of pictures. Doing this of course we will never get the real high numbers, but we will have lots of great memories. And the kids really are great cover. Example: a micro we found under a spruce tree in a park. If I went digging around under there, people would wonder what I was up to. Send a kid under a tree and nobody will think twice.

LightningBugs Boy is 9 and has a real talent for finding caches. If given the choice, he would rather stay at home with his Gameboy, but who says he gets a choice? :blink:

LightningBugs Girl is 5. Whether she has a good day caching or not is determined by her mood. Some days it seems she can trek for miles, other days we are not 20 feet from the car when she complains about how tired her feet are.

January 16, 2005

I have three kids (ages 9, 5 and 1). They have all been out geocaching with me. Obviously proximity and difficulty account for who goes when. My nine year old absolutely loves to go to the events. The only one who does not cache is my wife. She still does not understand it (although it gives her some peace when I have the kids out)...

January 17, 2005

My son is almost 5 and my daughter is about to turn 2 years old. The very first cache I went to, I took the whole family. Mom stayed in the car with the little one that day, but all of us walked together on a recent cache find and it was a lot of fun. My daughter probably won't go on a lot of the trips, but we'll plan simple ones so she grows up with it. It is a great family activity and it gets us out of the house. Mom has recently caught the fever, so all of us appear to be into it, now. Besides, when your kid gets this kind of look after finding "treasure," you can't beat it...

January 17, 2005

well seengs how im school age and I go goecaching with my uncle who got me hookd and in turn got my little brothers (9) (4) hooked and also got one of my friends hooked and he is now looking for a GPSr to buy

---------------------

invaders blood marches through my veins like giant RADIOACTIVE RUBBERPANTS. do not ignore my veins

Edited January 17, 2005 by crackerjack91

January 17, 2005

Our 3.5 year old son and 7 month old daughter go on our trips. The lad knows that when we stop looking at the GPS, it's time to start searching in bushes and logs - He actually found the cache before us a couple o weekends ago! Worst thing is, now it's summer, we need to keep him close for fear of snakes.... He then rummages through the cache and picks something out of it whilst the wife and I read / sign the log, and try to find something in our swag-bag that will fit in the container.

January 17, 2005

We are a geo-family: 1 Mom, 1 Dad, 3 sons age 10, 8 and 5. Our 10 yr old bought himself a Geko 201 with money he earned himself. We found this game online and tada. We love it. We've only done 1 cache without the kids and that is because of -50 degree temps. We are usually not First to Find, but almost always find the caches we look for. Only once have we failed - so far. Kids see things differently than adults and so what we cannot find - they do. And vice versa.

Our boys take turns navigating with the GPSr and we have to referee who gets to grab swag first. On extremely difficult hikes (2) we definitely have to take more precautions. Due to a difficult one we now carry at least 2 bottles of water, a lighter, a compass, tell someone where we are going beforehand, and carry at least 4 sets of extra batteries (very important if bushwacking). In winter we have taken a toboggan along just in case our youngest gets tired or one of us would get injured. Always always mark the location of your vehicle or parking lot if going on a long bush type hike. It is amazing how one can get turned around and with kids that may mean a 4 hour hike instead of 1 1/2. Packing gum or candy for mouth moisture is a good idea.

We plan caches together as well. Kids have great ideas as to where to hide or what they like or think is clever. And they think waaay out of the box. For long drives we take along Gameboy Advance, music, and Adventure story tapes/CD's like Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer, Swiss Family Robinson etc. to get them in the mood.

We are now planning a month long trip based loosely on caching to the Canadian Maritimes and are enjoying the research involved. My hubby is a geography teacher and boy does he teach us when we do this stuff! Cache on. Family caching rocks!

January 17, 2005

I would love for my kids to go with me, I convinced my daughter to go last weekend

and she thought it was pretty cool. She's 11 and I though for sure she would snarl at the whole idea of just being in the woods

Other son is 14 and you can forget it !!! The thought of getting any dirt on those pretty white bball shoes........... he would just stroke out !

Now the third child has no choice at all, he's only 4 and he has to go where ever I go. It's cool, he likes the outdoors. None of my other children would play outside, they never developed that sense of imagination we had as kids. I could not wait to get home from school and hit the bikes.

I got into geocaching because I stil have that "inner child" so to speak, plus I host a website for hiking and biking. And I've recently added a section for geocaching in hopes that it will get people out into the parks, out on a bike trail, anywhere but in the house on a nice day.

it's sad that everytime I mention geocaching or hiking to someone I know they look at me like i'm are some kind of nerd freak. Like it's immature and beneath them. Maybe I should hide beer or cigarettes caches

There was a time or two for me when a gigarette cache would have been just handy dang dandy!!!

hahaha

Back on topic: I think it's great to involve the kids in geocaching, I wish it were around when I was a kid. It gets them out into nature, away from the daily stresses.

Funny though, it's an adult oriented game yet all you ever see is " took the happy meal toy and left the rubber ball" . I'm as guilty as anyone there. But I've been finding some first aid kits, extra batteries or cd's that I'm gonna add.

Those little wetwipe pads for stings and skin irritation are really great when you in the thick off trail areas.

So bring the kids, bring 'em all !!!!!!

January 17, 2005

I'm new to the game. The few time i've been out my kids have been with me. 3, 5, & 7 yrs old. They love it! They aren't the best finders but they like the "treasures" that they can trade. they get bummed out when its a micro.

steve

Geocaching With School-age Kids

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