While writing my new book, "Hikes with Tykes: Games and Activities for, before and after the Trail," I suggested an activity that I quickly realized was something I'd pulled from our time together, "Paper Doll Friends": "For preschoolers, create a hiking family as well as animals seen along the way that they can use to relive their adventures or to make up new ones, getting them excited about the next hike. Paper dolls and cartoon animals easily can be found through a search engine for images, printed and cut out. Have your kids help select the paper dolls to print. To get the paper dolls to stand, glue or tape them to blocks that your kids easily can hold in their small hands."Do you remember when I used to do that with you? Whenever you came to like a new television show, and we couldn't find action figures to buy, I'd locate pictures of the characters online, print them out, and tape them to blocks. I did it at least for "Johnny Quest," "Fireman Sam," "Scooby Doo" (the villains anyway), and "Caillou." Since the ink on the paper always had to dry, and I'd always glue the paper to cardboard so it would hold up longer, there was this terribly long wait for you, and you'd always ask me if the pieces were ready yet!
One day after I'd taught you to use a scissors and glue, you started cutting out Peanuts characters from the Sunday comics and taping them yourself to blocks! I was so proud of you, and so moved that you loved these paper dolls so much that you would make them yourself, just like daddy did.
