Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Taya]

I want to design a treasure hunt or scavenger hunt for my middle school winter camp. I've never done a camp before but I heard someone mention this idea so I suppose it will work.

I was thinking of doing the kind where one clue leads to another clue. Like "the next clue is under a soft couch" or something along those lines. What are some good clue ideas? I don't want to make them too cryptic.

Or, do you think a scavenger hunt would be a better idea? Then it would prevent people from randomly searching for the final clue and if someone gets stuck, they would still have a chance to win. Maybe I could do a photo hunt using their cellphones?

I've heard of internet treasure hunts, and that's okay but I'd rather a fun one where they have to search around.

Any other hunt-related suggestions?

[digby]

I suppose it depends on where it is, how much space you have, how many students etc. With the clues things if they are in teams you don't want them all with the same trajectory so you have a whole lot of clue making to do and if you have limited space for them to be playing detective in it makes it a bit difficult for larger amounts of students.

Cell phone scavenger hunts can be good if there's a lot of variety around. You don't want every group coming up with the exact same thing so you either have to have lots of space and items to potentially work with or very vague generalizations. In a group teaching thing I did we had an amusing (if not very successful) cellphone scavenger hunt. It ended up with the class voting on whether a picture counted or not so in the end it was more of a class giggle exercise than any real learning. But even the teachers had fun

[schwa]

I ran a cellphone photo hunt with a bunch of middle school kids recently & it was much enjoyed.

Teams of 4 or so were given a paper with an alphabet grid on it & a clipboard. Their task was to photograph & write down one (& only one) item starting with each letter. They had to be creative as only unique answers would score points, & they had to work fast under a time limit -- 30 minutes was ample. They need to be able to roam a bit outside the classroom.

Then they all reassembled for score-taking. We went through the alphabet letter-by-letter each team in turn reading out their answer (lots of groans & cheers as their answers were duplicates or not). No need to check all the photos, just for occasional proof of odd claims.

Also served as a great mixer. To make teams I had them all stand in a row then I numbered them off, with all the 1s, 2s, 3s etc forming teams. Served nicely to split up ingroups & get boys & girls cooperating.

Lots of interesting vocabulary got generated too.

[Catfisher]

[schwa]

It can be as simple as the alphabet printed down the lefthand side of the page, or maybe split the page with 2 columns of 13. You can make boxes, or not. Thats all I meant by a grid. Maybe I should have said table. Just something that clearly indicates where they can list their answers.

[Catfisher]

[Taya]

Great! I like the cellphone alphabet hunt idea a lot.

I'm not opposed to doing work but maybe making a ton of clue cards and taping them all over the school is too much.

[Catfisher]