Episode Summary
In this episode I share four engaging back-to-school scavenger hunts aimed at getting students up, moving, and familiar with their classroom and school surroundings. The hunts include a classroom scavenger hunt for basic items, a supply scavenger hunt with math tools, a Pete the Cat themed hunt combining reading and a school tour, and a Brown Bear, Brown Bear inspired hunt incorporating book clues. By strategically timing these activities and incorporating hidden lessons, teachers can create memorable learning experiences while achieving specific objectives for the school year.
In this episode, I share:
- Importance of Scavenger Hunts
- Pete the Cat Scavenger Hunt
- Brown Bear, Brown Bear Scavenger Hunt
- Benefits of Scavenger Hunts
Resources Mentioned:
First Month of Kindergarten Success Kit
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
[0:00] Hey, teacher friends. Today on the podcast, I want to share with you the four back-to-school scavenger hunts that I do with my students at the beginning of every school year. Whether you’ve started the year or you are waiting to start the school year, these are great to do at the beginning of the school year with your students. Let’s get started.
[0:20] Music. You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast, where kindergarten teachers
come to learn classroom-tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe, and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone. Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love? Let’s get started.
[1:14] So the first thing I want to talk about before I tell you which scavenger hunts I do is why scavenger hunts. They’re fun. They’re engaging. They get the kids up and moving, which is a key.
[1:27] It’s a very important factor at the beginning of the year is getting kids moving in a structured way, but it helps them really get to know their environment. And the beginning of the year, you really need to spend time with the kids getting to know their classroom as well as the larger school environment. So the first scavenger hunt that I do day one, I think day one or day two, is a classroom scavenger hunt. I have them look around the room for the bathroom, the library, where to find markers, where to find pencils, where the rug is, where their locker is, like very simple. It is slightly different than the scavenger hunt I have them do with their families when they come on visit day. That’s a separate classroom scavenger hunt where, again, they’re finding the bathroom specifically in their locker and their name tag and all of that. That’s more specific to them, whereas the second one that we do the first day of school is more specific on where things are in the classroom that I’m going to be referencing, like the sink, like where to get water, things like that. And I will introduce to them when we’re doing this, maybe like how to use markers, and then I’ll give them new markers to do this. So.
[2:45] As I mentioned in previous episodes so far, anytime I’m doing an activity at the beginning of the year, I have like an ulterior motive. I have a routine or expectation that I’m trying to teach. I never just do an activity for the sake of doing the activity. So for the scavenger hunt, I’ll probably teach them how to use the markers and they can check off. I show them, trust me, you have to show them how to check off because they don’t know what that means. Or give them a couple options because sometimes the check is really hard for them. So you could say do an X and show them what I mean by the X or say just do a circle. You could choose. I like giving choices, but also it helps because not all of them can do a check and then they’re all running up to you to ask for help. So model for them, show them how to use a classroom tool, and then let them go find those things. When you are doing a scavenger hunt like this where they’re finding things, They need to have clear visuals on the page. The one I use and the one that’s in my two weeks back to school kindergarten product has very clear visuals. If you want to be even more spot on, you could take the picture from around the classroom and have them find it. And that’s even more spot on. But I am just, I don’t want to do that every year.
[4:04] So I have the clip art that the kids get every year. They know what I’m talking about. And that way, because they’re are not reading it. That way they can find the objects themselves. After they do a classroom scavenger hunt, I’ll do a specific supply scavenger hunt later in the week. And I especially like to do this for math, a math specific one where they’re finding the different math tools that they’re going to be using because I want them to know where the tools are that I’m expecting them to be able to get independently.
[4:34] So I’ll do this not right away, but after a couple of days and And just for them to see what’s out there, what tools are available for them. And we’ll go over what the tools are and how to use them later on. But this is just the basic introduction of like, these are the tools that we have that’s available to us. So like I said, for the math specific one, I might do chips, those two colored chips, dice, Unifix cubes, stuff like that. You can see all of that again in that two weeks of school kindergarten and back to school kindergarten product. Product on the second day of school i do a pete the cat rocking in my school shoes scavenger hunt now on the first day of school i do the most basic mini tour of the school so that they know where the bathroom is it’s in our classroom thankfully where the main office is where the nurse is and then how to do the fire drill because later on that week we will probably have a fire drill could be the next day for all i know so on day one i do the most basic just tour of the the score.
[5:35] Then I want to make it a little more fun for them to get to know. So day two, we read Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes. Now, when we’re reading the book, Pete the Cat is kind of describing different places and giving clues as to where he’s going. So I literally read the book as we’re walking around the school. So he’s describing all the places like the library, the cafeteria, the gym, art room. And so we just read along with the book. And it’s not necessarily in the order of the school, but the more walking we can do, the better, because they’ll see the different places in the school.
[6:13] They’ll get moving. So I don’t tend to like change the pages in order around, but you could, you totally could. And they don’t go over every single space, but there’s a good job of showing different parts of the school that you hadn’t gotten to yet with their quick little mini tour yesterday. In addition to reading the book as we go, I like to bring around my stuffed animal, Pete the Cat, and actually bring him around to show the kids the parts of the school. But this is also a great reinforcer of the lesson you had yesterday, which is that it’s important to be quiet in the hallways when we’re walking. And so Pete the Cat can be like, wow, everyone’s walking so quietly. You can use Pete the Cat to reinforce those lessons. After Pete the Cat rocking in my school shoes.
[6:59] Later on in the week, I read the kids Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? In the podcast around activities I do in the first month of kindergarten, I talked about how I like to do a class book with their names, with the Brown Bear, Brown Bear. So that’s why I’m reading it early on. After I’ve read it, then the following week, I can do a Brown Bear, Brown Bear scavenger hunt.
[7:24] So I have this product. It’s separate from the first weeks of kindergarten. You can buy it on its own, or it is a part of the first month of kindergarten survival kit bundle. But each animal in the book has a little message, and I did make it so that you can put it in the order that makes sense to your school building so the clues are a little bit flexible. But so the kids get the clues. You go around the building trying to find the different animals, and they absolutely love trying to guess and figure out where the animals are. And at this point in the year, they know enough about the school. I mean, it’s been a week, so they know enough about the school to guess the rooms that you’re describing with the clues. And they know the book well enough now because you read it maybe a couple of times and you’ve done the class book. They know the animals enough to see them when they’re going around the school. My tip for doing this kind of scavenger hunt is to do it sort of after their first snack or recess so that you have a chance to go around and putting all the things up. If you do it first thing in the morning, they will inevitably see them around the school and ruin the surprise.
[8:35] So because they’ll be at different arrival points and they’ll be at the cafeteria eating breakfast or they’ll be out at recess or whatever, like they’ll be coming from different places. They will see the animals and then they’ll be like, hey, I saw the brown bear. And it’s like, oh, good. Just forget about that. So if you can, that’s when I would hide the clues.
[8:55] And then hide the first clue somewhere in the room and then pretend to be surprised when someone notices it. And if no one notices it, be like, hey, who put this here? What is this? And like ask them. And then they get really into it. They get really into like guessing, you know, the magic of the scavenger hunt, the magic of who’s leaving the clues behind. It gets very exciting for them. So later on in the year, I do a similar very magical based scavenger hunt with the gingerbread man stories. And at the end of the year for Pirate Day, we do a scavenger hunt. So the kids really love these and they love guessing the clues. So definitely check that out. And the brown bear one is a great way to get to know the school at the beginning of the year.
[9:40] So those are the four scavenger hunts that I do at the beginning of the year. They’re a great way, like I said, to get moving, to get to know their classroom and the school. And they’re just fun. They’re fun and engaging. So give one of them a try. Let me know how it goes. Tag me on Instagram if you try one out and it went well. Share this with a friend so that they can try it with their class. And I hope that you are having a great back to school season or enjoying the last few few days of summer like I am. I almost forgot the quote of the day. Speaking of Pete the Cat in my school shoes, Pete the Cat has another great book, Pete the Cat and My Four Groovy Buttons. And so this made me think of that for the quote of the day. It’s not really related to scavenger hunts. I didn’t have a good quote for that. Anyway, boy, five years old was asked about a button and he said, “buttons are hard. Nobody knows what buttons do.”
[10:40] Music.