Free Printable Scavenger Hunts for Kids: 10 Picture Hunts (PDF)

How to use a printable scavenger hunt

1. Pick a hunt that suits the place you are going: the park, the backyard, the classroom, the beach or your living room.
2. Print the page and give your child a pencil or crayon. A clipboard or a hardcover book makes a handy desk outdoors.
3. Look together. Each hunt has 12 pictures to find. Depending on the theme, children can look outdoors, around the home, or in books, toys and pictures.
4. Tick each find in the box and write the total in the “Found: ___ / 12” counter.
5. Finish with the extra challenge, such as “Find something soft and something rough” or “Count how many different colors you see”.

Choose a hunt

• Outdoors: Woodland Explorer (nature walk), Backyard Detective (garden hunt), Playground Quest (park hunt) and Beach Day Explorer (seaside hunt).
• Indoors and at school: Classroom I Spy and Cozy Home Hunt.
• Learning hunts: Rainbow Color Hunt for colors and Shape Detective for shapes.
• Picture hunts for books and toys: Safari Picture Hunt (find the animals in books, toys or pictures) and Space Picture Hunt (explore space books, posters or toys).

What children practice on a scavenger hunt

• Careful looking: noticing small details such as a feather, a snail or the color of a toy.
• Vocabulary: naming things and reading the labels printed on the find-list.
• Counting: counting finds up to 12 and writing the total.
• Colors and shapes: matching what they see to circles, squares and the colors of the rainbow.
• Taking turns and talking: hunting in pairs or small groups and sharing what they found.

Make a hunt easier or harder

Every child is different, so change the hunt to suit yours. For a younger child, hunt together, point to the pictures and tick the boxes for them. For an older child, add a time limit, ask them to write a word for each find or to draw one of the things they found. You can also split a hunt over several days, or hunt in two teams and compare the totals. The extra challenge at the bottom is a good place to add a small question, such as “Which find was the biggest?”.

Safety and printing tips

• Stay with young children outdoors, and look but do not pick: leave plants, mushrooms, shells and animals where you find them unless an adult says it is safe to touch.
• Print at 100% (Actual size) on US Letter or A4. Plain paper is fine, and a clipboard keeps the page flat.
• Print a fresh copy for each child, so every child gets their own tick boxes.
• Ages are a guide: the pages say 2 to 9, but younger children will need a grown-up to help.

Credits and licences

Many of the pictures and icons in this set use Noto Emoji artwork by Google. The Noto emoji fonts are licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, and most of the emoji images are licensed under the Apache License 2.0. The page layouts, text and KidsTracing logo are our own. These printables are free for personal, home and classroom use, and not for sale or resale.