Plan a spring scavenger hunt with your kids

Spring is in full bloom! Don’t let your kids watch it arrive through the windows — have them experience it more completely with a spring-inspired scavenger hunt.

We’re going on a scavenger hunt

Encourage your kids to immerse themselves in spring with a spring scavenger hunt. Make a list of the signs of the season and turn your kids loose outside. Let them use more than just sight by listing sounds and smells, along with sights. Here are some ideas for items to put on your list:

Sights

1. Emerging flowers
2. Open windows
3. Flowers on a tree
4. Dandelions
5. Worms
6. A puddle
7. Birds
8. An acorn
9. Pinecones
10. Mushrooms
11. Slugs

Sounds

1. Birds
2. Thunder
3. Music from a car
4. An ice cream truck
5. A lawn mower
6. A motorcycle
7. A dog barking

Smells

1. Fresh cut grass
2. Barbeque
3. Chlorine

Go for color

Make your scavenger hunt a little more open-ended by looking for specific colors instead of items. Use a poster board or sheet of paper and draw circles filled in with all the colors of the rainbow along the left side. Encourage your kids to find items in the yard that match each color and glue them next to the corresponding circle.

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Picture it

Instead of writing out a list, go outside before you start the hunt and take photos of items in the yard. Print them off and give the pictures to your kids to use as a list. This works great for children who don’t yet read.

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Expand your boundaries

Don’t limit yourself to your backyard. Take your kids on a walk and encourage them to look for items throughout your neighborhood or at a local park.

Stretch it out

Your scavenger hunt doesn’t have to end in a day. Make a more complicated scavenger hunt that you can continue for weeks, or even the entire season. Go over the list with your kids and hang it up someplace where they can see it. Each time they find something outside that’s on the list, they can mark off another item.

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Take action

Mix things up by making a scavenger hunt filled with actions your kids might see in the spring. This is a hunt that will definitely take longer than one afternoon to complete, so count on it lasting at least a week or two. Keep an eye out for actions from the list every time you leave the house together. Here are some actions to get you started:

1. Someone pulling weeds
2. Someone planting a tree
3. Someone painting a house
4. Someone washing windows
5. Someone washing a car
6. Someone riding a bike
7. Someone riding a skateboard
8. A squirrel with food in its mouth
9. A convertible with the top down
10. A kid running through sprinklers

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