Autumn walks on the beach with the children

About amber finds and shell mosaics and a HOMB that became a helper in a completely different way than planned

Of course my children love the beach, like almost all children. But in October on Rügen, of course, the bathing and digging dream comes to nothing. Instead: Long walks on the beach every day. 😒 They've been less popular with our kids so far, but we were determined to change something about it this holiday. With or without HOMB.

My son is 7 and my daughter just turned 5.

Both are – certainly not a rare phenomenon in this age group – enthusiastic collectors and researchers. My in-laws therefore had a great idea: They bought a few real small amber stones before our vacation and then announced several times along the way that they actually sometimes wash up on the beach in the Baltic Sea. So the first walk on the beach quickly turned into an amber search, which – oh wonder 😂 – was also successful. The children were so excited and excited that they actually found something valuable just like that on the beach. The amber authenticity test (dropping it into salt water) followed later at home. And to this day, the two “lucky finds” have a place of honor in the children’s room.

Sure: we had to do a bit of trickery and the pace was slowed down significantly by the constant search, but at least we managed to get them both to want to go for a walk on the beach the next day all by themselves.

Now, of course, we couldn’t “conjure up” such a highlight every day. So the next day we did something a little less exciting: looking for shells. We had previously gotten a canvas and shown the children pictures of shell mosaics on the Internet. And the walk with the children turned into a shell-hunting project.

This time we were able to walk for 1 hour in the same direction. Of course, we had planned the HOMB as a back carrier for the way back, since the little one isn't a great runner yet. But what about: She surprised everyone, because the search continued on the way back without any whining.

The craft work that followed saved the rainy afternoon.

We didn't have to use the HOMB as a child carrier (our daughter is getting too old for that anyway), but we were so glad that we had it with us anyway. It became a shovel and bucket carrier, a shoe holder and a seat pad, and our walks on the beach became a real family highlight.

- from Steffi