For a different type of scavenger hunt idea, give this “Things Beginning With….” idea a try.
How To Play
The way it works is that you give players (or teams) a letter of the alphabet. They then have to find as many items as they can that begin with that letter of the alphabet.
You can therefore make this game easy by selecting a letter like S or R, or more tricky by giving them letters like J, W or Y.
We’d suggest giving each player / team a piece of paper and pen so that they can keep track of each item they’ve found, or to make a list of words beginning with the letter so that they know what they need to find.
Type Of Scavenger Hunt
This “Things Beginning With…..” game can be played as either an item or photo scavenger hunt. With the first option, players have to physically collect items beginning with whichever letter they’ve been given.
With a photo scavenger hunt, teams would instead take pictures of items rather than actually collecting them. This opens up more opportunities for items to be added to their list that they might not have otherwise been able to collect. For example, if they’ve been given the letter B, they could take a photo of a billboard, bus, building, etc – all items they’d be unlikely to be able to gather in physical form (unless they have a great Lego collection!)
It also opens up creativity – for the letter D, they could take a photo of someone dancing, something they probably wouldn’t be able to do if they had to actually bring you a dancer!
Photo scavenger hunts can therefore be especially fun as you can look at each other’s photos afterwards and see everyone’s different ideas.
Rules
One rule that might be worth implementing is that proper nouns and plurals can’t be used, although that’s completely up to you.
It would also be worth clarifying in advance whether variations of the same word will be accepted. For example, if using the letter P, a player might bring back two types of plug – one that powers electrical items and the kind that you stick in your ears for a good night’s sleep. Although they’re the same word, they’re completely different items, so let players know if this will be allowed so that they don’t waste their time.
Scoring
Players should be awarded 1 point for each different item they can find. There are a couple of additional ways you can award points:
- Award bonus points based upon creativity, humor, etc
- Make a list in advance of 10 random words that begin with whichever letter you’ve picked, but keep the list secret. Award bonus points for each item they find that matches an item on your list (similar to how Outburst is played)
If you liked this idea, check out all of our other scavenger hunt ideas, as well as our book – 52 Scavenger Hunt Ideas.