Who doesn’t love a good scavenger hunt? And a scavenger hunt in nature is even better! Today I am so excited to bring you some nature scavenger hunts for kids that have free printables (to make that fun and learning even easier).
As you might know, I have many little ones of all different ages. Since we homeschool, I try really hard to create activities that are ideal for as many ages as possible. This one clears any age span my friend! From the tiniest toddler to big kids.
Today I wanted to share with you how I used this activity with my 2 year old. And tomorrow I am going to share with you how I used it with my older boys who are 8 and 10.
For Norah I decided we would do a “colours” themed nature scavenger hunt. I printed off our little cards, cut them out, and popped them in the egg carton.
NOW, I saw the most brilliant thing the other day! Susie from Busy Toddler shared the idea of cutting 2 egg carton cups off so you would have 10 egg carton cups – 5 on the top and 5 on the bottom. This makes it a perfect ‘Making 10’ chart.
I have to say – this simple idea has totally rocked my world. The possibilities!
Anyways, I digress. So I cut the egg carton so we had 10 cups and popped the 10 coloured dots in the bottom. And Norah took it from there. She was walking all around the yard finding little stones, leaves, dirty pinecones, you name it, trying to match her colours.
She tended to find the most unappealing places of our little homestead as well, my husband pointed out, making the pictures trying. She didn’t want to explore the pretty spring garden we just planted, or the freshly cut grass. Nope, dirty chicken area and the gravel driveway.
Her big brothers helped her along as she was trying to find colours, as this is a skill that she hasn’t yet mastered.
Since we had such a beautiful making 10 chart that we were using, we could easily chat about numbers during this nature scavenger hunt as well. It was so easy to see if we had all 5 cups in the top row filled, or how many were missing. This was a great way to add in counting, one-to-one correspondence, and loads of math.
The only colour that was tricky to find was purple. She settled on a stone that was sort of a shade of purple. This will be an easier task when all the flowers start popping up!
Once she had found all of the colours we sat down to chat about her treasures. This is such an important step for toddlers and preschoolers (actually, for children of all ages). Developing language happens best by talking to our little ones lots and lots. We want them to hear all sorts of words and descriptions.
We chatted about the feather in her egg carton. I asked her if it felt soft and she rubbed it on her cheek (don’t worry, it was from one of our chickens. That might not make it any better, but it made ME feel better!). I told her to place it on her hand and give a little blow. Poof! Off it fluttered. Norah thought that was the best and gathered it up to do this again and again.
We also chatted about the rocks she collected, comparing them by size. We found out which one was the biggest, which the littlest, which one was heaviest and which one was lightest.
Of course we only continued this for so long because Norah was interested. She tends to be my quieter child and enjoys sitting still and chatting. Prior to this baby I had thought children like this were mythical beings. Ha! If my little one had not wanted to sit still to chat about treasures we would have made this a much more physical exploration. We would have been tossing the stones into puddles, trying to stand on them and balance, or walk with them on our head. There is a lot of ways to develop language as you move about!
This activity was such a hit with Norah I know we will visit it again and again this summer.
I want you to do this activity again and again with us! I have made for you a nature scavenger hunt printable that includes all sorts of great things you can pop in egg cartons. These ideas are great for kids of all ages!
In this FREE printable you will get:
- colours
- colour words
- numbers
- textures (with pictures)
- vocabulary building words
- opposites (I share how WE did this one with you on the blog tomorrow!)
- and letters
You can get your FREE 9 page printable nature scavenger hunt ideas right here:
I hope one of these ideas is perfect for you and yours. Happy playing!
Thank you so much for reading, sweet friend,
xo
Sarah
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