This Trail Finding Scavenger Hunt is a Great Idea for Summer

Kids love scavenger hunts, and a hunt that gets them outside and helps them learn a little bit about navigating in the wild is extra fun.

This trail signs scavenger hunt idea from There’s Just One Mommy is a great one to do with a group or as a summer camp activity, but you can also set it up yourself instead of having two groups of kids do it.

The activity includes a printable with different trail marking symbols kids can make with sticks and rocks. One group of kids can collect the items and make the symbols to help the other group find a toy or another fun little treasure.

If you have a smaller group of kids you can set it up yourself, or have one kid set it up for the other(s) and then switch.

Or if you need it take less time, start with sticks and rocks already collected for the trail markers to start with.

I do want to note that this post is old and when I clicked on the link to download the trail signs printable I had to request access (which I did but haven’t gotten access yet) but the idea is still a good one.

Check out this post from Ranger Rick to find ways to mark trails (it includes a PDF of the basic trail markers that you can access). You could also buy this printable trail signs activity from Still and Made on Etsy that includes even more symbols you can try.

Either way, this is a great activity to do at a park or somewhere with a nice amount of space to direct people around. Check out the post from There’s Just One Mommy for more inspiration on how to do this activity.

[Photo: There’s Just One Mommy]

A classic manipulative in the preschool and early elementary classroom is the snap cube, also known as math cubes, unifix cubes or unit cubes. These little one inch cubes often come in a set of 100 in 10 different colors, and they snap together so they’re easy to use for all sorts of math learning, measuring and more.

No Time for Flashcards has a cute robot printable to use with cubes to measure the height of each robot. That one is free but they also have other printable cube mats that are a paid resource.

Catherine & Co uses math cubes to teach kids about measuring volume. They make a letter from cubes and then measure the volume (there’s a printable worksheet in the post).

Pattern recognition is another fun and easy activity you can do with the cubes. You can use printables like these from Planning Playtime, or just make a pattern from cubes and have kids repeat it or figure out what comes next. There’s another good set of pattern printables at English Created Resources.

Because there are 10 sets of 10 cubes in a pack, these are great for teaching one to one correspondence, counting, sorting and basic addition and subtraction. English Created Resources has great printable number mats you can use to form the number from cubes and count out the number of cubes that corresponds to that number.

ParenTutor has a great collection of snap cube activity ideas, most of which are just pictures, but it’s work taking a look through the post for ideas for using them at home or in the classroom.

To give just a few of their examples, you can match linked blocks to the corresponding number of pieces, use blocks to find different ways to add up to 10, compare numbers and determine which one is more or less, skip counting and weighing different numbers of blocks.

You can also use unit cubes to learn letters, like with these super cute alphabet mats from Fun Learning for Kids. Kids can trace the letter, make it out of cubes and practice writing a word that starts with that letter.

Of course you can also use them to build things, since they are blocks, and there are tons of pattern mats on Teachers Pay Teachers. I also love these dinosaur themed mats from Lets Go to Learn on Etsy.

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