Name of Activity: Outside Scavenger Hunt

Originating Idea: We will take the concept of a scavenger hunt and bring it outside with materials
found naturally in nature.

Curriculum Area
Highlight 1:
Approaches to learning
Social and emotional development
Physical development and health
Language, literacy, and communication
Mathematics
Creative arts
Science and technology
Social studies

KDIs
45. Observing: Children observe the materials and processes in their environment.
Materials:
 Printed out pictures of objects to find.

Appropriate Age group: 4 to 5 years old

Beginning of Activity:
During outside time, I will get all the students together. “Today we are going on a scavenger hunt where we will
need to find all the items in these pictures, I have printed out for you guys. You can work as partners or in
small groups to work on one object at a time to find during our outside time. Once you have found the object,
come back by the classroom door, and place your object on top of your picture on the ground. When we’ve
found all of the materials for the scavenger hunt we’ll come back together as a class and observe our findings.”

Middle of Activity
Children from different development levels may do well with recognizing the object in the photos but
might not know where it could be found in our outdoor area while others will understand where certain
items are found outside.

Early: They may have trouble finding the natural location for some of the objects and may need an adult to
point out the general area.
Middle: They will be able to find the objects needed for the scavenger hunt and report back to observe the
objects.
Later: They will be able to quickly find all of the objects in the scavenger hunt and describe the natural
locations these objects occur in geographically.

End of Activity:
“We were able to find all of the objects and materials in our scavenger hunt and observe the different areas
outside that the objects came from. We are going to put these materials back roughly where we found them
and spend the rest of our outside time playing and exploring! I will collect all of our pictures so I can bring them
back inside with me so we can remember the objects we were able to find.”
Follow-up Ideas (2)
The objects from the scavenger hunt can be taken inside for a sensory and observation bin.
The objects found from the scavenger hunt can be used to create art if students use glue or tape.