Using Scavenger Hunts in Math

I am a big believer in having my students engaged as much as possible when they are practicing math skills. My team uses a centers-based teaching framework so that we meet with smaller groups of students. To do this, we need incredibly engaging activities for the other students to be working on. This is a strong area for me and something that I love doing.

One of the centers that my students love the most is the math scavenger hunt. A scavenger hunt is an activity where I scatter review questions around the classroom and the students have to look around and locate the questions. The questions are not hidden in difficult places, but I do try to mix up the numbers of the questions. Question 5 might be hung next to question 22.

Right now, my students are working on completing an addition scavenger hunt. There are 22 questions (covering all of the skills we are teaching in this unit) hung up around the classroom. My students go from question to question, answering as they go. It is fun to see if they will answer the questions as they find them or to watch them hunt around and try to do the questions in order. Each scavenger hunt has an answer sheet for the students to record their answers on (in case I need a formative assessment or something). Before the Addition Scavenger Hunt, we did a Place Value Scavenger Hunt. When I passed out our Centers Grid for the week, they (both classes) were very excited to see the Scavenger Hunt on there.

If you are interested in using a Scavenger Hunt in your classroom, the hunts that I have made are available from Teachers Pay Teachers. I also included a QR code on each question, so students using iPads or iPods can check to see if they got the answer correct. It is a lot of fun and very engaging for the students.

The Addition Scavenger Hunt and the Place Value Scavenger Hunt are available at my TeachersPayTeachers store, along with many other math activities and games.  I would love for you to check out the products I have available.  I would also love to know what centers you use in your math time.  Please leave a comment below to let me know what your students love doing to help them practice their math skills.