We absolutely love going to the zoo (especially now that we renewed our zoo pass)! We normally just enjoy meandering from one exhibit to the next, but this time I thought it would be fun to trying something new!
I used some of my dad’s amazing photographs from Zimbabwe (as well as a few others licensed as public domain) to create this printable Zoo Scavenger Hunt.
I printed each of the boys their own copy, gave them a clipboard as well as a marker, and off we went!
This picture makes me laugh. Notice the direction the binoculars are facing… :)
Every time we saw an animal on our page, Big Brother would sit down and cross it off his list. He loved counting how many animals we had left after he crossed off each one!
Here are the completed scavenger hunts…Big Brother was meticulous about crossing out the animal name and circling the animal picture. Little Brother got a little excited about the process!
This was so much fun for everyone! It gave Big Brother something to get excited about. It also avoided the typical “It’s-Time-to-Leave-Battle”…once the Scavenger Hunt was completed, Big Brother said, “Okay, we’re finished! It’s time to leave now.”
I’d love for you to try it out and tell me whether your kids enjoyed it!
Download the PDF Printable Scavenger Hunt.
This is wonderful! We’ll be trying this out for sure. Thank you so much for sharing it.
This sounds like a great idea. I had one way to add skills is that the children could write the number of each animal they saw so they can practice their counting skills too.
Love, Love, Love this!! My oldest would go crazy for this. I’m pinning so the next visit we make to the zoo, we can be sure to have this along with us! Thank you!!!
Perfect timing! We are going to the zoo tomorrow. First time for both our girls and I’m printing this off to take with us :)
What a great idea!! We will have to try this as well. Thanks for sharing!
Great idea! And thanks for so generously sharing your fun printable. I featured your printable as the free printable of the day at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page and pinned it to my Zoo Animal Unit Study board at http://pinterest.com/debchitwood/zoo-animal-unit-study/.
Wish I’d had this printable when my kiddo was younger. We used a zoo bingo printable ~ this one is wonderful. We’ve also done a “zoo book” as she gets older to practice writing the animal names. Just curious ~ did you take these images at the Wichita Zoo? It sure looks familiar. :)
This is great. I’ve bern thinking about doing something like this for our zoo to spice our visits up a bit. Thanks! Although…we’ll never find a cow at our zoo. :-P
Thanks for sharing!
This is a great idea! I wonder if my son would carry it the whole time?? I forsee him having a great time with it and then, here mom,hold this! :) but I’m going to give it a try!
My guy didn’t carry it the whole time…we had a stroller with us (for my 2-year old), so he put it in the bottom of that while he wasn’t “using” it.
What a great idea! And that looks like our zoo here in KS. I will have to do this with my girls they would love it! Thanks for the idea.
I like this idea. I just took my boys to the Zoo yesterday. I wish I saw this, but I’m definitely saving it now so I can print it out for the next time we go. Thanks so much!
LOVE this idea! Thanks for sharing!
I love this idea, but I couldn’t get the picture to download. It keeps opening zip files but never downloads the actual picture. Could you email it to me at cdruckenmiller (at) gmail (dot) com? We go to the zoo all the time as well and I think the boys would LOVE this scavenger hunt!
Carmen
Never mind, it finally worked.
I love it!!! But I would make space to add some lines next to each photo so kids (or adult if child can’t write yet) can write facts about the animal. Ex. The Tiger: Eats Meat, Is a Cat, Has Black Stripes, Has Sharp Claws, where it lives (rainforest) or what kind is it (Bengal)
This isn’t downloading for me!!:( Would appreciate some help.
Such a cute idea..I did a version of this when we took a long car ride from Houston to Pensacola, Florida..Printed up pictures of things we “might” see along the way (like I KNEW we would see the Mississippi bridge) on index cards and every time my daughter would see one we would write down what state and when…it was sooo cool…she grabbed her cards every time we got in the truck…gonna have to try this next time at the zoo
Thank you for the starting point. I modified for the animals at our zoo but what a wonderful activity to do with them while we’re there :)
great idea! we have planned a field trip to zoo, would like to try the same. in fact, today we finished an exciting activity in the class-’Vote for your favorite animal’ The amount of fun children had was worth watching and lot of discussion happened in the class as they discussed about their favorite animal and kept their fingers crossed as the votes were counted.
Would you mind if I put a link to your site in my blog? I used this sheet for my girls at the zoo and would love to share with my readers. Thanks
Of course! Thanks for the link. :)
I forgot to add that my blog website is http://www.onlylittleonce.wordpress.com if you want to check it out first. Thank you
I use a similar idea. I fill a small bag with plastic or plush animals that I know are at the zoo. Let the kids pick out an animal from the bag and go and find that animal. We then take a picture of the kids holding up their toy animal in front of the real animal and have made a mini photo animal book of those shots. Really good for small children and small zoos.
Thank you for this idea, I created my own for the animals at Melbourne Zoo and laminated it so we can wipe clean and use again.
What a great idea! I’ll be using it for my son’s birthday party at the zoo :D