Go West, Young Kids

This activity will help your child's geography skills, as she pretends to be moving West.

Go West, Young Kids

Required:

Map of the United States

Do you and your young 'uns have a hankering to travel west? Then we reckon you ought to get a move on and decide which trail to take.

First, your kids study a map of the United States. Then each player tells you which states he or she would pass through to get from the east coast to the west coast. Vary the game by calling out such instructions as "Let's travel through the most states," "How can we take the shortest path?" or "What if we only go through states that begin with the letter "W"?

You can also play the game by asking your kids to name cities, instead of states, that will take you west. Or change the object of the game so that players are traveling from west to east, or north to south.

When your children have beaten a path through the United States, they can travel west through other countries. Or ask them to trace their path west from your hometown—until they've circled the globe!