Nature Scavenger Hunt

We love to spend time outdoors, so I was excited when GummyLump Toys asked me if I wanted to be the camp counselor for “Trail Blazer” week in their Summer Camp at Home series.  We put together a nature scavenger hunt and set out to explore a new local trail.

For our checklists we used a 3×5 index card. I made a simple grid on the cards and we brainstormed what we might be looking for during our nature walk. Because we made up our own, I was able to individualize the cards for each of the girls.

Tinker’s card focused on some of the colors, concepts, and shapes she has been practicing lately.

Lovey’s card helped us review some of the opposites we learned during our O is for Opposites activities.

It’s a little hard to see in the images but I cut about a half-inch section at the end of each line and creased the ends of the cards. This gave us little tabs that we could fold backward as we found each item.  It was a great way to keep track of our checklist without having to carry too many items with us on our walk.

We also wanted to have our hands free to try out some of the fun toys Gummy Lump sent us to use on our nature walk. Tinker chose to explore with her new binoculars.

And Lovey preferred investigating with her new magnifying glass.

The girls ended up helping each other, and they found all of their items together as a team.

Tinker especially loved stopping along the way to look see what she could see “high” in the sky and “low” on the ground.

Lovey’s favorite find of the day was our pictures for “big” and “little.”

Our index card checklists came in handy for keeping track of what we were still looking for. It also gave us a chance to incorporate literacy into our walk. Each time Lovey would find something she knew was on the list, she’d use the beginning sounds in the words to help figure out which tab to fold back.

A fun way to extend this activity would be to create a matching card game or book like we did for our previous shadow activities at the park.

Disclosure:  GummyLump Toys sent me toys to play with, but in no other way sponsored this post.  All ideas and opinions are my own.

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