Printable scavenger hunts for the walk you were going on anyway

A walk to the park is a walk to the park until somebody is looking for a stick shaped like a Y. Then it is an expedition, and the three-year-old who usually asks to be carried at the corner walks the whole way with her eyes on the ground.

What the sheet looks like

The scavenger hunt generator prints a list of things to find for a place you are already going: a nature walk, the neighborhood, around the house, the beach, the playground, a color walk, a shape hunt, the five senses, or a rainy day inside. The format is a checklist to tick, a page of boxes to draw each find in, or a bingo grid. Nine, twelve or sixteen things fit a page (bingo takes nine or sixteen, since it needs a square), the set is shuffled from a bigger pool every time, and you can type your own title. The nature list runs from a feather and a pine cone to a cloud shaped like an animal.

Why it works

• A list makes a child look. “Something older than you” on the indoor hunt is a real question, and the answer leads to a conversation about the sofa.
• The draw-it format turns the hunt into recording, which is the first step of science: find it, then put it on paper so you remember.
• The five senses and color walks have no right answers, so a child who finds nothing on the nature list can still fill a page.

Who it suits

The checklist suits any age that can be read to; the draw-it page suits four to seven; the bingo grid is the one older children prefer because somebody wins. At eight or nine the lists get easy, and a custom title with a timed finish keeps it interesting. If the bingo format is the hit, the bingo card generator does the same grid with words and numbers for indoors.

Print the beach one before you leave the house. Nobody has a printer at the beach.