22 Neighborhood Scavenger Hunts

Get the whole neighborhood involved with this fun and easy scavenger hunt using sidewalk chalk.

One of the benefits of this scavenger hunt is that there's hardly any prep work involved. Each child involved in the hunt will design one of the items on the list. That's it!

Get everyone to sign up through a Google form or other survey method. Assign each child who signs up one of the items on the scavenger hunt printable. On a specific day, the children draw their assigned items on their driveways with sidewalk chalk.

Then everyone heads out into the neighborhood to search for all their friends' drawings. Genius!

This fun neighborhood scavenger hunt will get everyone in the family out for a little walk.

Like the other scavenger hunts on the Loving Homeschool site, this one comes with two free printable versions: a pictoral one for pre-readers and a list version for kids who are able to read.

Young children will be looking for a dog, flower, blue car, bird, bike, ball, tree, house, girl, squirrel, van and gray door.

Items on the older children's list include: A mailbox with the number 7 on it, a driveway with 2 cars in it, a dog, a house with blue shutters, a for sale sign, a bike, and a flag on a pole.

This quartet of printable scavenger hunts from Simply Full of Delight are not just fun, they're also great teaching tools for younger children.

The first one is a sheet of different colored circles. Kids have to find an item of each color. This hunt can be done either indoors or outside.

The second one is pictorial and features several items from nature such as bugs, trees, leaves, and flowers. This is a great way to encourage observation skills in your kids as you walk through the neighborhood.

The third one works on letter skills as kids have to find an item that starts with each letter of the alphabet.

The final printable hunt helps attune kids to their five senses by getting them to record what they see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.

The author has also included some coloring sheets you can print out and take along with you for a fun day at the beach or park.

Sometimes you know exactly which things you want your kids to search for on their neighborhood scavenger hunts. Othertimes, what you really need is a good list of ideas.

The scavenger hunts at Maple Planners offer both. From here you can grab a nature savenger hunt, an outdoor scavenger hunt, an indoor scavenger hunt, and a blank scavenger hunt printable, waiting for you to write in all your creative ideas.

I love how the items on the nature and outdoor scavenger hunt printables have a variety of specific and ambiguous terms on them. For example, kids are asked to find a red flower, a piece of bark, and a piece of trash they can recycle, but they're also challenged to look for something soft, something yellow, and something that starts with the letter M.

I think that giving them this type of variety on their list makes it fun and interesting for them and allows them to get creative with the treasures they find.

Troubleshooting Motherhood offers two different scavenger hunt printables: one for kids who live in the country and another for city-dwellers.

I love that parents can choose the activity that will best suit their kids and their "natural habitat." As the author points out, some of us live in neighborhoods where it would be nearly impossible to spot a stop sign or a police car. With your choice of two printables, you can pick the one that will be a fun challenge for your kids rather than a source of frustration.

DIY Thought puts a fun twist on their four scavenger hunts for inside and outside the home. In each of these printables, kids have to do a little extra work to find out what they're looking for.

They either have to do a simple math question or a fill-in-the-blank to find what (or how many) items they're looking for.

For the garden scavenger hunt, there's also an element of observation. Questions like, "What shape can you see in the clouds?" help children to take a pause and actually notice what is going on around them.

Cendu Param of Cenzerley Yours has two free Easter scavenger hunt printables: one for inside and one that can work as an indoor or outdoor activity.

The indoor one uses rhyming clues perfect for early readers that will lead them on a trail through the house to find an Easter surprise.

The inside/outside one is a pictoral list that will work great for younger kids who might not be old enough to solve clues yet. Either way, kids are sure to enjoy these extra fun scavenger hunt activities on Easter morning.

Here's a city hunt with a fairly extensive scavenger list that should be a little more challenging for older kids. With list items such as "An Open 24-hours Sign" and "A Bumper Sticker About Animals," you'll want to make sure you're in a fairly busy neighborhood before heading outside on your search.

Many residential neighborhoods may not have some of the urban items on this list, but if you live in an area with stores and other businesses, you may be in luck!

This one would also make a great photo scavenger hunt. Just bring along a camera or a phone and take a snapshot of all the cool things you find.

Speaking of photo scavenger hunt ideas, here's a printable designed with that exact purpose in mind. This family scavenger hunt would be an extra fun way to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon making some awesome memories.

Finally, I love this spring scavenger hunt from Big Family Organised Chaos. It's the perfect way to get kids outside in the spring when the weather is starting to warm up and encourage them to start noticing all the exciting spring things happening all around them.

Baby birds, umbrellas and rain boots, new grass–there's so many special things to see on a spring nature walk, and taking along this colorful printable scavenger hunt will help you and your kids notice and enjoy them all.