If you’re looking for a fun adventure for your kids to do outside in the beautiful weather, then you should consider a photography scavenger hunt in your backyard. This can be a huge amount of fun and can get your kids to better appreciate nature.
If you don’t know what a photo scavenger hunt is, it’s where you give your kids a camera and a list of things they need to find to take pictures of. Whoever, finds and takes the most pictures of the items on their list -wins.
You can do this activity with young children as early as five or you can create teams and include younger children as well. Just remember that you need to have at least one child who knows how to use a camera. And, if a child doesn’t have a camera, you can always use an inexpensive disposable camera.
Here are a couple of things to consider before you start:
1) Set boundaries of where the children can go. In most cases, your backyard can work great. Just remember that safety should always come first.
2) Set rules. Make sure that everyone starts at the same time and place. Also, set a specific ending time (even if no one wins) and a place where everyone must return to. Another thing you should consider is that each child knows that they shouldn’t take too many pictures of any one object. Try to have them take no more than 2 -3 pictures of each item on their list.
3) Give each child or team, a list of 10-15 objects to find. Give a mix of items so some items are easy to find while others are more difficult. For each item on the list, assign a point value to it based upon the difficulty of finding the item. While making your list be thinking of items that are fun to find and help educate as well.
If you need ideas for your list, here is a simple printable scavenger hunt list that HP put together that’s really cute if you want something that’s ready to print.
And don’t forget to take pictures of your kids on the scavenger hunt, so you’ll have something to put in a decorative picture frame to remember this fun day!