Classroom Scavenger Hunt

It seems like every year in the spring, I still have kids asking me where things are in the classroom. How can they not know where the trashcan is by March?!

I always start off the year by giving a tour of the classroom, but I realize now that they're trying to take in so much information those first few days that they just can't remember it all.

This year is different! This year one of our first week activities was a ...

First I decided on the most important things in the classroom. These are things the kids will use an almost-daily basis. I tried not to pick too many things because I really wanted them to remember where everything was! I also didn't want the activity to take forever...

You can see my scavenger hunt below. If you click on the picture, you can download a free copy and edit it to fit your classroom.

I paired my kids up and had them work together to find each item. I didn't make it a competition. This early in the year, I really don't know my kids well enough to know what they can handle. I was a little wary of sending them loose around the classroom in a race : )

I'm very lucky to teach at a school where each student has their own school-issued ipad. We get started using them right away, so I wanted to include a digital aspect to my scavenger hunt. I had the kids take a picture of each item in the scavenger hunt. They put them all together in the free app: Pic Collage Kids. This is an app we'll use all year and most of my kids are already familiar with it. Again, since it's so early in the school year I try to keep things fairly simple.

In my free download on Teachers Pay Teachers, I also included some other digital ideas.

Now when my kids ask me where the trash can is in March, I can kindly redirect them to look at their Pic Collage.

How do you help your kids learn their way around your classroom? Comment below!