Scavenger Hunts for All Ages!

Get outdoors and have some scavenger hunt fun: it's ideal for all kinds of situations and places!  It takes just a little bit of preparation and the children all love scavenger hunts whether in a small garden or a huge park.  Here are some ideas to get the children inspired outdoors no matter what their age!

Colour Hunt: Gather some things from round the house: toys, blocks, balls etc that are 4 different colours: red, green, blue and yellow.  Show the items to your child and sort them into piles by colour.  Keep one of each item and without your child looking, hide all the rest around our garden or around the park.  Send your child off to search for all the red items, then all the yellow etc.

Buried Treasure: collect some pebbles or pieces of dry pasta and cover them with silver foil to make them into shiny treasure.  Count them, and then hide each of the pieces in the garden.  Send your child off to find them and count them all back in at the end!  Perhaps if they find them all they win a piece of real treasure: a foil wrapped biscuit or a foil pouch of summer fruits to eat!

Shape Hunt: Make 16 cards and draw 4 coloured squares, circles, rectangles and ovals onto them.  Give one of each to your child and hide the rest.  Ask them to hunt for the others, matching them and naming them as they find them.

Letter Hunt: Write some letters on a page and ask your child to go off into the house or garden and find things beginning with that letter.  For A find an apple, for B find a ball, for C find a toy car etc.

Have fun!