5 Senses Scavenger Hunt
A simple and engaging activity to do with your kids that can be done anywhere and everywhere - at home, at the park, in the garden, at a museum…wherever your adventures take you!
How I came up with this idea:
This idea came to me recently when I was pondering how to spend an upcoming PD Day with my daughter - her brother would be in daycare, so it was a fun chance for us to have some quality one-on-one time! I decided to take her to an art gallery for her first time as our main activity - but, anticipating how she might get antsy to create some of her own art while viewing other people’s art (she’s currently 5 and a 1/2), I came up with an idea that would allow her to create whenever inspiration hit, without it being a huge production (at first I thought about bringing watercolour paints along with us but quickly decided that would be way too messy for a 5 year old in an art gallery).
Art Galleries and Museums are a feast for the senses:
As I thought about what she might notice at the art gallery, never having visited one before, I thought back to my own art gallery visits as a child. The exhibits that always stuck out to me as a kid were the ones that included sounds, visuals/moving pictures, even scents…in other words, I remember the different senses being intrigued by the exhibits, more so than the static pictures on the walls.
So that’s how I came up with this simple idea of putting together a little booklet to document and organize the different sensory experiences we had at the art gallery!
How to make your own sensory scavenger hunt booklet:
It really couldn’t be more simple, or cheap. We crafted our booklets out of 6 pieces of white paper and some tape, and brought along one marker each with us to the art gallery - but you could get as fancy or as simple with your own booklets! Here’s how we made ours:
Tape together 6 peices of white paper at the seam, creating a “bound” booklet that you can flip through easily.
On the first page, create a title, that summarizes each of the 5 senses. My daughter can’t read quite yet so we drew pictures beside each word so she could learn to recognize the words throughout the day.
On each page, write one sense (and it’s accompanying picture) on the top of the page.
That’s it! Don’t forget to bring a marker or writing instrument with you on your adventure!
What we learned:
This activity was a huge success. Calling it a “scavenger hunt” was also the perfect way to get my daughter really excited about taking in everything and anything she could while we were on our outing. She noticed every little sight, sound, texture, smell and taste (when we went for sushi together after the museum) in a very intentional way - it was so beautiful to experience together! We’ve even kept our booklets, which we didn’t totally fill up, and she’s already asked to do another sensory scavenger hunt somewhere else!
What I wasn’t expecting:
An unintentional, very positive, outcome of this activity was that it really allowed my daughter to slow down and take in the different exhibits and experiences at the art gallery - pausing to stop, take out her marker, and draw what she was seeing or experiencing. It was really awesome! And the art gallery we went to was quite small, so it really extended the value we got out of our trip! We spent over an hour at the gallery, which had we not paused so many times to jot down our experiences, we probably would have rushed through in 15 minutes.
Tell me what you think!
Before you go, tell me in the comments section if you have done anything like this with your child, and how that went! Do you have a different type of sensory activity that you like to do? If so, please share! And as always, thanks so much for taking the time to read and for being here with me. It means the world!
