Scavenger Hunt

With Earth day coming up I starting thinking about what would be a good way to explore the outside and learn a little bit about the Earth. A while back my kids and I went on a scavenger hunt while on a walk at our local lake. We did this as a way to get outside and explore. I created a little book with each page containing a number (starting at one on page one) and something to search for.

Found a pine cone!

When the kids found one of these things we put a sticker on that page so that we could remember what we had found. We did not fill the entire book because we got distracted by the joy of throwing rocks into the lake but we got a good chunk of the way done and enjoyed finding the different things along our walk.

Another pine cone

Something hard

Another something hard

This is a great activity to help with identifying different aspects of our surroundings. You can use things that you are working on with your kid like colors, weight, texture, length, the possibilities are endless. This is a great aide for learning about almost anything. I made up a little scavenger hunt that would work for just about any day but has a couple of things that lend to making a good list for Earth Day like finding litter (why not take a bag to pick some up along the way, and talk about why it is important not to litter) and finding things that need water (such an important limited resource that ALL living things need to survive and one thing that makes Earth so special).

Here is an example of a scavenger hunt list. You can print this out (I hope) and use small stickers to mark off when you find one of the things on the list.

 Most of all have fun getting outside and exploring :)