Make walking fun with a ‘scavenger’ game

Purpose:

To help make walking to school fun and interesting while learning about the neighbourhood along the way.

Description:

Children love to explore, and a scavenger hunt done with parents/caregivers or friends while walking to or from school is a fun way to do that. As an alternative, this activity can also be led by teachers during the school day as a class activity, or any other time when walking through the neighbourhood.   

Before the walk, create or download and print an “I-Spy card” of things to hunt for, such as objects, animals and street features. Review the items with students before heading out to hunt, perhaps prompting a conversation with questions about what they expect to see or have seen before. During the hunt, you can provide prompts (e.g., “I spy the umbrella” and encourage them to find it) or have children hold their own cards and check off items themselves. You can also 1) invite them to use a phone or camera to take photographs of the things they find to use for journaling or other follow-up activities; 2) invite them to tally items that they spot more than once to do some follow-up graphing of the most frequent finds.  

The scavenger hunt can be done as an activity on its own or as part of a Walk and Wheel Day event. 

What you will need:

I-Spy cards (see Resources below); pencil, pen, marker, or crayon; clipboard (optional); camera/phone (optional).

Help:

Parents and caregivers, teachers.

Where are the I-Spy Cards?

“I-Spy” card templates are available from Green Communities Canada (download on the right)

Key Words:

explore, walk, tour, scavenger, hunt, pedestrian, walk, find, interact, search, I Spy, spy, route, game, practise, neighbourhood