5 Ideas for Outdoor Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts are such a fun outdoor activity for kids! From a young age, many children love to collect and sort little treasures, and as they grow they delight in finding games like hide and seek and scavenger hunts. So we’ve collected together five of our favourite outdoor scavenger hunts as we believe they are perfect for encouraging children of all ages to spend time outside – at home or school.

5 Outdoor Scavenger Hunts for Kids

1. Sensory Nature Treasure Hunt

With a sensory twist on a classic scavenger hunt, our Nature Treasure Hunt will encourage children to hunt with all of their senses as they search for items representing a range of colours, textures and shapes. We’ve included a handy printable copy of the Nature Treasure Hunt list to make this a super easy activity to try at home or school.

You can also challenge older children to capture a photograph of each find.

RELATED: Make a Paper Bag Treasure Bag for a scavenger hunt with toddlers or preschoolers.

2. Shape Hunt

Take your children out to look for real-life shapes in the natural and built environment. Give each child or team a picture or token of a specific shape to find, or alternatively, create a simple page for children to find and record a tally for a small number of shapes. Use the page to discuss which shape they saw the most outdoors.

Invite children to create each shape using small sticks, stones, long grass or leaves, or draw shapes on the paving with chalk.

3. Texture Tag

This active game is a fun twist on a nature texture hunt. It’s perfect for children who need to move and make noise. Racing around on a texture adventure is exciting and a great way for them to use their energy constructively! Check out our Texture Tag lesson plan for full instructions.

4. Spraying Silhouettes

Take your children out to find some interesting shapes in nature (leaves, flowers, gumnuts, etc) and then create temporary art by spraying around the outlines with coloured water in spray bottles. This is a fabulous creative play idea with natural outdoor materials that invites exploration and discovery. Check out the Spraying Silhouettes lesson plan for full instructions.

5. Colour Hunt

Take your children outside with a collection of paint swatch cards and invite them to choose a card and then hunt for objects within the outdoor environment that match the colours on their paint swatch.

Easy to adapt for children of all ages, abilities and interests, scavenger hunts are fabulous for encouraging children to be active and engaged outdoors.