Savenger hunts and ‘I spy’ games are among our favourite ways to teach new words to a child while having fun.
It is easy to put organise it just requires a little bit of time.
For our first session of this term we went to Naturescape in Kings Park for a scavenger hunt. I went a few days prior to take pictures and see what the children could collect.
It is the same principle with the “I spy” activity, take a few pictures and add a fun and short comment to make it easy for the children to memorise. You can either do a monolingual version or a bilingual. Since not all the parents do not speak French or Spanish, I tend to produce bilingual worksheets.
Once the pictures are taken, paste them onto a word document and add a comment or in this case I just wrote the names in Spanish next to the pictures.
Then you give the children each a bag and explain that they are little explorers on a mission, they have to find all the items of the list and put them inside the bag.
I like collaborative games rather than competitive, so I encourage them to help each other. You can give them a prize but it is not necessary, they are so happy going on a hunt!
Be mindful of always keeping safety in mind first and do not produce a list too long, you do not want them to lose interest half way through the game.
You can always ask questions about what they have found when you all get together and give them a chance to practise the language they are learning.
Questions such as:
Where did you find this? What is it? Is it heavy or light? Is it big or small? Where does it come from? (a feather from a bird, a leaf from a tree)…. Can you tell me about the colours or the shape? etc…
Click here for a sample of our worksheet so you can get some inspiration and make your own.
Below are the items collected by one of our little explorers.
Never forget that children learn best when they have fun. You can organise and ‘I spy” at home, in your backyard, in your child’s bedroom or toy room. No need to make it really hard.
Children get tired quickly, so keep it short and interesting.