There’s so much to see outside in spring. Get the kids outdoors this weekend and see what natural things they can find from our spring scavenger hunt.
Spring Scavenger Hunt For Kids
After a long winter, it feels so good to get outdoors again as soon as spring arrives. Everything is getting greener and it’s lovely to see the buds and blossom coming out on the trees. At least this year we’re not emerging after a dreaded winter lockdown.
One habit we have kept up after the pandemic is going on regular family walks, even when the weather’s not great. It isn’t always easy to persuade the kids to go though, as the novelty has long worn off.
If you’re looking for an easy activity to make family walks more fun, try incorporating a spring scavenger hunt. It takes almost no planning or prep, adds a much-needed motivational element to get outdoors, and gets the kids exploring nature and really looking to see what’s around them. You can also take the list with you on a bike ride or to the park.
Going on a Spring Scavenger Hunt
This spring scavenger hunt printable sheet includes a variety of items that can be found in the garden, the park, the woods, or most green spaces at this time of year. It’s ideal for getting little ones excited about being outside again (and might work better than the general bribery and bags of snacks that I’ve been resorting to over recent months).
What Is a Scavenger Hunt?
I love scavenger hunts because they’re so much easier than a treasure hunt where you have to provide clues and hide items! In a scavenger hunt, you just give each child a list of items to find and they tick them off as they find them. It’s also quite a versatile activity because you can make it competitive or not, and have the kids hunt either individually or in teams.
How to Use the Spring Scavenger Hunt
It couldn’t be easier. Just download the PDF (below), print it out and off you go, ready to tick each item off the list as you find it.
If you’re super organised and think you’d like to do this activity again next year, you could even laminate your printed sheets so they can be used with drywipe/whiteboard markers.
The download has 3 pages: one for plants, one for animals, and one for other miscellaneous natural items.
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What You’ll Need For a Spring Scavenger Hunt
You don’t really need anything to enjoy the scavenger hunt other than the printable sheet itself. If you’re looking for a spur-of-the-moment activity, just grab the sheet and a pencil and head out the door. However, there are a few items that can make the activity more fun and turn it into more of an adventure, particularly for the preschool brigade:
- Give each kid their own clipboard. Little kids LOVE a clipboard!
- Drywipe markers if you’ve laminated your sheet
- Child-sized binoculars. We have these ones and they’ve had so much use
- Kid-proof magnifying glass or magnifying bug jar to get a better look at any insects – remember to let them go before you come home!
- A child-friendly guidebook to help identify things you might find, such as this one on minibeasts or this one on birds
Other Ideas For an Outdoor Scavenger Hunt
If you don’t have a printer, how about getting the kids to take a photo of any fun or unusual things from nature that they can find while out on a walk? Then when you get home they can look up any items they can’t identify.
Things to Remember During a Nature Scavenger Hunt
- Only pick things up from the ground
- Don’t damage trees or plants
- If you capture any creatures to look at, let them go before you head home
- Don’t touch any birds’ nests unless they’ve clearly fallen onto the ground and been abandoned
- You might not find everything on one day. Keep your checklist for the next walk, and try looking for things in a different place
- Remember the countryside code: leave only footprints and take only photographs!
Download the Printable Spring Scavenger Hunt
Fill in your details in the form below to receive your free spring scavenger hunt.
I hope you enjoy this printable Spring scavenger hunt. If you use it, please let me know how it went in the comments!
Wishing you a happy Spring!
Printables on this site are for personal and educational use only. You may not alter them or redistribute them for monetary gain without written consent from the author.
Cover image by Esther Merbt on Pixabay
Much needed visual aid for autistic students
this is the wrong link for the SPRING scavenger hunt
Apologies! That is fixed now. (You can also retrieve the file from the automated email.)