Fall is here! I love everything about fall. The colorful leaves, apple treats, hay rides and the excitement building for Halloween. What’s not to love? As a teacher, I’m always looking for activities to do with my students that celebrate the season and encourage them to look closely and notice the things around them. A scavenger hunt is a great way to do this. This Free Fall Scavenger Hunt for kids is a great way to look for lots of symbols of fall.
The scavenger hunt is a wonderful opportunity to spend time outdoors or you can stay inside to find each of the items. Each thing that children need to find are a symbol or item associated with fall. Some of the items should be easy for kids to find, like an apple, but others may prove to be more challenging. It’s a great way to explore fall!
For more fall fun, make sure to check out Hands-On Teaching Ideas popular collection of Fun Fall STEM Activities for Kids and a Fall Escape Room Game with lots of free printable puzzles.
If you are looking for even more scavenger hunts, check out 37 Free Printable Scavenger Hunts for printables for every season and adventure!
Free Fall Scavenger Hunt for Kids
Set Up
Scavenger hunts are a great way to encourage children to take time and observe their surroundings. They have to search and match items around them to the items on the list. This forces them to look for signs of fall. After finding each item, they are hopefully more likely to notice it each time they see it after the hunt.
For this scavenger hunt, children are challenged to find:
- Red Leaf
- Brown Leaf
- Hay Bale
- Pumpkin
- Acorn
- Squirrel
- Yellow Leaf
- Apple
- Bug
- Nest
- Log
- Scarecrow
The scavenger hunt is included in black and white as well as color. You can choose to print either of the copies you want. With large groups, I often print the color copy and then laminate it so that it looks appealing, but can also be used multiple times. Give kids a dry erase marker to use on the laminated page and then erase when they are done.
The black and white copies are perfect for groups that you may want to give them extra time to color the images when they are done the scavenger hunt. They can take their time color, and then take it home after.
Autumn Activity for Kids
To do the hunt, give each child a copy of the scavenger hunt, put kids in groups or with a partner, and have them start searching for each of the items on the list. A great way to do the hunt is to start inside and work your way outside to find all of the items. Check, or cross them out after they are found.
When I first started doing scavenger hunts, one problem that I often ran into was that many of my young students couldn’t read the word for the things they were supposed to find. So when I created this fall scavenger hunt, I added an image beside each word. It’s an easy way to help children with their reading by including picture clues. You can also read through the list before kids start their hunt.
Depending where you live, and where you do the hunt, many of the items will be easy to find; however, you may have some items from the list that are really challenging or impossible to find. If this is the case, you have a few options before you start your hunt. You can allow kids to use books or even videos that are in your room or school. I knew that the scarecrow was going to be really challenging to find so I printed a picture of a scarecrow off and posted it, slightly hidden, where my students were going to be doing the hunt.
By providing alternatives to an actual physical object, you can avoid the activity from becoming frustrating when an item, or two is impossible to find in your area. Have fun with the hunt and celebrate fall!
More Scavenger Hunt Resources
If you enjoy the free fall scavenger hunt featured above, make sure to check out the full collection of scavenger hunt in the same style with this collection of 40 scavenger hunts for year round fun! Click the image below to check out the full resource.
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