Treasure Ahoy!
Summer is the perfect
time to enjoy some outside learning. Many studies have shown that it has
numerous benefits for children: better health, decreased stress levels,
enhanced communication skills and increased motivation, being just a few.
Treasure hunts and
scavanger hunts are a great way to get children learning and exploring away
from I pads and computers, either in your own garden or in a supervised outdoor
space, such as woods or a park. They are also a means for children to practise
reading, writing and communicating in a fun way. For all of the activities
outlined below, there is the option of the adult writing and child reading or
vice versa, one child writing for another child to read and with very young
children, working together on both writing and reading,
Creating maps:This is perhaps the
most obvious aspect of treasure hunts. Using a large piece of paper, create a
map of the garden, encourage children to label important parts, e.g vegetable
patch, chicken run, swings. Of course, you don't have to stick to reality; the
sand pit can become quick sand and the pond a swamp filled with alligators!
Your garden could be Narnia, or Arendelle, or anywhere that your child is
interested in at the moment. X will mark the spot for the hidden treasure (the
possibilities are endless). An alternative to using paper, is to use chalks to
mark out a route and leave signs, such as “Danger”, “Go forward 10 steps”, “Proceed at your peril” or “Welcome to
Narnia”. Maps are also an excellent way to introduce the idea of keys.
Clues and codes: Setting up a
treasure hunt around the garden or any space you’re familiar and comfortable
with, can again be done by you or your children. The hunters are looking to
uncover a succession of clues leading them ultimately to the hidden treasure.
The clues can be hidden in all sorts of places and is very exciting. Whether
the children write the clues or decipher them, both activities entail using
creative thinking and will certainly lead to lots of discussion!
Scavanger hunts: Slightly different
to treasure hunts, scavenger hunts are a race to find as many items as possible
on a list, so are great if you happen to have loads of children in the garden
during the summer holidays.
The site below has 10 fantastic ideas
for scavenger hunts, many of them outdoors.
Another fabulous
resource is the Woodland Trust, which has free spotter sheets on everything
from butterflies, creepy crawlies, tracks and leaves to poo! https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/naturedetectives/activities/search/?activityType=100016071
I have used the
Woodland Trust spotter sheets with whole classes and individual children, with
great success. The children are so excited to be finding leaves, birds, flowers
etc, they hardly know they are reading. If you want to involve a bit of technology,
help the children to take photographs of their finds, upload and label,
describe and catalogue alphabetically.
Alternativley,
children can easily create their own spotter sheets for each other. A great way
of doing this is encourage them to select
10 toys (plastic dinosours, cars, teddies) write the names on a piece of paper
and then place them around the garden for another child to find.
Finally, just in case
we have some rainy days over the summer, treasure hunts and scavanger hunts are
easily played indoors too. If you want to challenge older children, searching
for adjectives, proper nouns, adverbs etc in books works well as a timed
competition.
However you decide to
organise your treasure or scavenger hunts, you and your children are sure to
have lots of fun while reading and writing!
We would love to see your designs for your treasure maps. So why not send them to us at: sue@blackheneducation.com
This blog post was written by Bernadette Whiteley, one of our English tutors at Blackhen Education.
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