This winter scavenger hunt for kids is a great activity to do when you know that it’s going to be cold outside and you don’t want your kids cooped up indoors.
It takes a bit of preparation though, so keep an eye on the weather reports!
Here’s how to organize it:
Resources
- Alphabet ice cube trays (these ones are perfect for it)
- Food coloring (one color per person / team)
- Buckets or plastic bags
- Scavenger hunt list
- Pens
Preparation
Due to the amount of time it’ll take to freeze all the ice cubes, you’ll probably need to start creating the ice cubes a few days in advance.
Use the food coloring to make ice cubes that are different colors. Each player / team will be allocated a particular color to find, so use as many colors as there will be teams. If you only have one child, there’s no need to use food coloring other than to make it more fun.
On the day of the scavenger hunt, spread out all the ice cubes over as wide an outdoor playing area as you can. Don’t put all the same colors next to each other, this way teams will have to search harder for all of their ice cubes.
It’s therefore also worth checking out what the weather will be on the day you’re planning this winter scavenger hunt for kids, as if it’s too warm the ice cubes could melt before they’ve had a chance to find them!
To Play
Provide each team with a bucket, plastic bag or another container that’s large enough to hold all the ice cubes they need to collect. This will protect their hands and help prevent the ice cubes from melting.
There are then a couple of ways you can play this scavenger hunt:
- Full Alphabet – Teams have to find ice cubes representing every letter of the alphabet. Provide a list of all the letters in the alphabet for them to check off as they go along.
- Winter Word(s) – Teams have to find ice cubes that spell out a winter related word(s). For example, you could have them find letters to spell out “Frosty The Snowman”, “Christmas”, “Winter Scavenger Hunt”, etc. The list would therefore spell out these words for them to check off each letter as they find them.
To make the second option a little harder, don’t provide a list of letters they need to find. Instead, simply advise the teams how many letters they need to find. Once they’ve found all the letters, get them to rearrange the letters to spell the winter related word.
Winner
The winning team is the one that finds all of their letters first (and spells out the word(s) if you’re playing that option).
Tip
If you organize the Winter Words option, bear in mind that this will require extra preparation time when freezing the ice cubes as letters may appear more than once in the word(s).
If you liked this winter scavenger hunt for kids, check out all our other winter scavenger hunts and Christmas scavenger hunts.