Does your child love the exotic animals that can be found at the zoo? Download our free, printable Zoo Scavenger Hunt to entertain them and sneak in some learning too! They will be hunting for 8 animals including a tiger, cheetah, panda and monkey. Our scavenger hunts feature gorgeous illustrations to capture kids’ interest and make them accessible to non-readers. Keywords are also included to support word recognition and improve literacy.
How to Host the Best Zoo Scavenger Hunt:
- Download and print a few copies of our free Zoo Scavenger hunt. ( Click Here To Download )
- Decide what you are going to hide. This could be toys, words or you could cut out the illustrations from a spare Zoo Scavenger Hunt sheet and hide those.
- Hide the animals in your room, house or garden. Choose the right location for your child’s age. Older children will enjoy the challenge of a larger hunting ground.
- Wish your child ‘happy hunting!’
Top Tip – Create a truly immersive experience by dressing up as zookeepers or nature explorers. Tape together 2 empty toilet roll tubes to create binoculars. Extend the fun by decorating these first.
Twists
Scavenger teams – Build teamwork skills by pairing children. A good idea is to pair older and younger children, the eldest finds the printed word and the youngest finds the animal.
Kids do the hiding – Turn the tables and let the kids hide the animals. They will love it when you or their sibling struggles to find their tricky hiding places.
Scavenger Spelling – Hide a letter with each animal and have your child note down every letter that they find. When they have collected them all, can they unjumble them to spell a word?
Location, location, location – Have your child practice their writing and spelling by writing the location of the hidden animal in the box below each one.
Counting – Hide multiples of each animal. Your child can tick or make a tally mark every time they spot each type of animal. At the end of the hunt, they can practice counting. How many of each animal did they find? Who found the most? Which animal did they see the most and the least?
Beat the clock – Increase the excitement by setting a timer. Can your hunter find all of the animals before time runs out?
Exciting prizes – Motivate your hunters with prizes of your choice. These could be for ‘fastest finder’, ‘most spotted’ or simply ‘completed the hunt’.
Our Zoo Scavenger Hunt can be laminated and played with a dry erase marker. This means that your child can play as many times as they like. The repetition will aid the recognition of the animal names and your child will get to try out all of the different twists.
Did You Love Our Zoo Scavenger Hunt?
If you and your child had a brilliant time completing our Zoo Scavenger Hunt we have other free, printable scavenger hunts available for you to try. How about finding new animals with our ‘Farm Scavenger hunt’. Get outside in the sunshine or add excitement to a rainy day with our ‘Indoor and Outdoor Scavenger Hunt’. Or increase the challenge with the puzzles and clues included with our ‘Pirate Scavenger Hunt’!