- Arts & Sciences
Explore the Outdoors with Your Little Scavenger Hunter
Written in collaboration with KidsGardening
Become nature explorers on an outdoor scavenger hunt! Take along our printable scavenger hunt guide, and look for shapes and colors in the leaves, flowers, and trees outside. Kids also work on logic and reasoning skills as they match or eliminate items to their list!
What They’ll Learn
Shapes
Nature
What You'll Need
- Print our Nature’s Colors and Shapes Scavenger Hunt Guide
- Clipboard (or a piece of cardboard and thick rubber band works too)
- Pens, pencils, and/or crayons
- Magnifying glass (optional)
How to Play
- Print and review our Nature’s Colors and Shapes Scavenger Hunt Guide with your child. Let your child lead the way by first identifying which shapes and colors they know. Put the worksheet on a clipboard for your child to hold while on the scavenger hunt.
- Pick an outdoor spot that offers good natural diversity, like trees, bushes, flowers, and more.
- Pre-scout the area for trash/hazardous materials so your children know what to avoid.
- Get your scavenger hunt on as you make discoveries that match the items on the worksheet. Have your child cross off the items they find!
Some examples to look for:
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Oval: rocks, flowers, bugs, puddles, animals
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Heart: clovers, flower petals
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Star: leaves, flowers
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Triangle: leaves, bark, trees, rocks
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Circle: rocks, flowers, lady bugs, nests
Parent Talking Tips
- Any greenspace will work for this activity, whether it’s a yard, park, botanical garden, or forest.
- Explain beforehand that they don’t need to find everything on the list to set them up for scavenger hunt success.
- If your child gets frustrated, try modeling a discovery. Show excitement when you find an oval rock, a rectangular piece of bark, or a pink flower.
- This scavenger hunt provides a great opportunity to teach your children to be respectful of nature by not picking flowers and cleaning up after ourselves. We should all leave nature as we found it!
More gardening resources for early childhood educators are available at:
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New content added weekly
Accessible on multiple devices
Downloadable books & games for offline play