Art Room Scavenger Hunt by Jillian McElhaney

Scavenger Hunt Worksheet

jillianmcelhaney — 2025-05-31 22:11:09 UTC

Game Title

jillianmcelhaney — 2025-05-31 22:11:40 UTC

Art Room Scavenger Hunt

The Goal

jillianmcelhaney — 2025-05-31 22:14:14 UTC

Students work in pairs (or up to a group of 3) to complete this scavenger hunt at the beginning of each school year. The questions and prompts change yearly, particularly based on any rearranging of the room that occurs. This scavenger hunt helps familiarize students with the location of items they'll regularly need to find and use in Art class each week. I've found that this helps avoid the frequent "where is __?" that is asked for the first 3 months of school, while engaging the students in a fun game! This is more engaging to them than me walking around pointing the items out.

The goal for students is to complete the entire scavenger hunt, including the final prompt, to earn a star. In Art class, stickers are used as rewards (the "sticker store") all year to reward select students who exceed my expectations that day. In this case, since all students likely end up completing the tasks, the reward is a small star sticker.

How it Works

jillianmcelhaney — 2025-05-31 22:15:33 UTC

Students are given the blank scavenger hunt and are read the directions. When I say "GO!", all students begin the hunt. They can work in any order they wish. To show completion, they must read ALL directions and complete each task exactly as written. I check the scavenger hunts as they are turned in (per the final prompt). If a task was skipped or completed incorrectly, the student(s) must fix it.

Incentives

jillianmcelhaney — 2025-05-31 22:16:45 UTC

My students have always proven to be motivated by stickers, even through 5th grade. This is the introduction to the "sticker store" (my reward system), but on a smaller scale since all students usually end up with the reward in this scenario.

Additionally, the act of racing around the classroom to complete the scavenger hunt "first", though there is no unique prize for first place, is usually a motivator for the older students in addition to the star.