Internet Scavenger Hunts for Kids

Scavenger hunts or treasure hunts, call them what you want. All of us have played them at some point of time in our lives and had a lot of fun while playing these games. Running around finding hints and solving clues, all to get to that grand prize was a thrill that for the longest time, was unmatched. As kids we would have probably never thought that scavenger hunts could actually become such a great teaching tool. But today many educationists and teachers are actually combining the good of the Internet and scavenger hunts to create educational scavenger hunts for kids to help them learn better.

What started out as an innovative idea for a scavenger hunt has today become a legitimate way of teaching kids. Not only does it allow students to learn how to solve problems, it also helps them improve their skills at reading and understanding. In an age where the Internet has become a ubiquitous tool, these scavenger hunts also go a long way in helping kids improve their computer skills. These are just some of the main reasons that Internet scavenger hunts have become so popular and so many teachers are resorting to using the same. Not only are these hunts informative, they are also not as difficult to create as it seems.

In fact developing them for children can be a lot of fun and involve a lot of creativity. With online hunts, depending on your preference, you can choose to stick to a particular subject area or create a quiz that opens up the pathways to different subjects and subject matter.

While it is possible to play these games as individual participants, it can also be a much enthused after group activity. You can divide the class into teams, appoint captains, and ask them to divide subjects to research various topics and find the answers to the varied questions quicker.

When aimed at specific subjects, the focus of students improves. Also there is no unnecessary research involved so there is no unproductive utilization of time involved.

The process of creating them is not very difficult. For older students you can provide a broad topic to research and ask them to research their own sources for the answers. For younger children, it is advisable to supply them with links to websites that has the answers to the questions that have been posed. You can follow the simple steps given below in order to create a scavenger hunt for the children in your class.

• First and foremost, it is important for you to decide on the subject matter that is going to be the focus of the hunt.

• Next you will need to find relevant websites that have information related to your subject matter. Remember that all the questions need to be formulated from the information taken from these websites.
• The next step would be to actually sit and formulate the list of questions that you want to ask the kids. You will also need to draft a list of instructions that the children need to follow in order to complete the game. Ensure that the instructions are clear and precise.

• You can choose to have two different formats for such scavenger hunts. The first format would need to you to give them access to the resource first so that they can conduct their research and then answer the questions. The second format will need you to provide the students with a website link for every question that you ask.

• If you want to create an interactive hunt, then you will need to consult a teacher with advanced web page creation expertise. But you could also choose to just have the questions on a normal office document and provide the children with access to the websites with the answers.

These are the simple steps that you need to follow while creating Internet scavenger hunts. While conducting the hunt, ensure that you monitor the kids closely to ensure that they are accessing on the websites specified. Take their feedback about the process at the end of the hunt so that you can modify the test the next time. Playing scavenger hunts to learn can be an extremely interesting and fun way to educate your class.