Painted Walking Sticks for Kids to Make

Painted walking sticks are fun and easy for kids to make with the sticks they find when they’re out for a walk. This is a great art activity that doesn’t cost a thing, and your kids will be so proud to carry their custom-painted sticks when hiking around the neighbourhood or out in nature. 

See all of our favourite nature crafts here.

One of the things we do, without fail, every day in my daycare is we go for a walk. Our daily walk is part of our routine no matter what the season.

Sometimes we make it a real trek, heading down into the ravine for an hour or two, or we’ll hike all the way to the river, which takes the better part of a morning.

Occasionally, we’ll drive to the lake so we can spend a few hours hiking the waterfront trail.

Most days, however, we just take a leisurely stroll around the neighbourhood.

The kids love to collect walking sticks along the way, and when we get back home, they stash them in the big tin bucket that I keep on the porch.

You may also like: Nature Faces (art made with natural items collected on a nature walk). 

They usually forget to grab a stick from the bucket when we head out for our next walk though, and they end up picking up new ones and bringing those home for the bucket. You can imagine just how many sticks we accumulate in that bucket over the course of a week.

I thought it would be fun for the kids to custom-paint their own walking sticks to keep in the bucket. This way, they’d be more likely to remember to grab their sticks when we head out for our walks, and they’d be able to tell whose is whose.

When my husband was trimming some branches from our maple tree recently, I had him cut some of the branches to a perfect height for the hooligans. Then, one day last week, we spread out our sticks and our paints on a blanket under the tree in the backyard and they got to work decorating them.

The kids painted their walking sticks with acrylic craft paint and then to protect the paint and to give their sticks a nice sheen, they brushed on a coat of clear craft sealer (also known as craft varnish).

What a great art activity for kids of all ages! They had a wonderful time decorating their sticks, and now they have their own personally designed walking sticks to carry proudly as they march around the neighbourhood.

Pop on over to CBC Parents to see more photos of the kids painting their walking sticks and for the full how-to for making your own.

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Jackie Currie

Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.