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Botanical Garden Scavenger Hunt

April 21, 2013 Ticia 12 Comments

 

My mother-in-law loves botanical gardens, and I have to admit I enjoy going to them also, they’re just so peaceful and calm.  Kids however don’t necessarily want to look at endless plants all day long.  My kids enjoy running around and creating their own adventures, but I also want to work on their observational skills.

 

botanical garden scavenger hunt

So last time we went there as my kids were climbing on the butterfly chairs and exploring the fossil garden, I took pictures.  A lot of pictures, not quite as many as I really needed to make a good botanical garden scavenger hunt (or at least not several ones….), but many many pictures.

Zilker botanical garden scavenger hunt

And not of flowers, I wanted this botanical garden scavenger hunt to be evergreen.  If I took pictures of flowers, when we come back in 2 months they won’t be able to find a thing.  Instead I took pictures of the footprints, and the buildings.  I took pictures of rocks.  Small details that are by the flowers.

Then I popped over to picmonkey and made a collage using one of their “square deal” frames.  I chose 3×3 because it let me make a wider variety, but you could obviously increase the numbers with older kids, and make the pictures more difficult.

 

Zilker scavenger
Zilker botanical garden scavenger hunt free printable, click on the picture

Then I made about 10 “Zilker Botanical Garden scavenger hunt pictures” all thrown into a word doc and saved so I can print them out.

 

Zilker botanical garden scavenger hunt

So, this Friday when we go there on a field trip with friends, I’ll hand out a copy of my “Zilker Botanical garden scavenger hunt” to each of the kids (yes I am having fun making it sound ridiculously official).  I’ll probably laminate them and do it with dry erase markers, and then let them trade around.

 

I think it will be popular what about you?  Have you ever made anything like this?  I had a theory of doing this once before when the kids were younger, but it was much harder to put together in the days before picmonkey.

 

 

Let’s see what others did this week:

Each week I’m spotlighting a few posts that were shared previously.  Many posts get linked up later in the week and they don’t always get as many clicks as they deserve, so I’m trying to spotlight a few every week.

Piwi Princess shared a fun idea for Earth Day, helping Monarch butterflies.  Attempting to cultivate milkweed in my backyard has been on my to do list for a very long time.

 

I love the idea of knowing the science behind what you cook, and Angellic Scalliwags shares a great post: experimenting with your cooking ingredients.  Any post that ends in baked bread gets an A+ from me.

 

Fantastic Fun and Learning shared a couple of posts (and they’re all linked together in the post I’m sharing) about her seed study.  If your kids aren’t in preschool you should still check it out, because it’s a great study for elementary kids as well.

 

And finally Navigating by Joy shared their ice cream in a bag experiment.  I like the addition of gloves.  Our attempt at it a few years ago didn’t go nearly so well as theirs did.

 

Now, link up, visit and comment at a few other posts linked up (we all enjoy some comments).  Don’t forget to include a link back here on your sidebar or on your post so everyone can find their way to the other links.

 

Photobucket

 

<div align="center"><a href="https://ticiamessing.com/category/science-sunday/" title="Science Sunday"><img src="https://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/g344/Ticia1/AiMScienceSundaycopy.jpg" alt="Science Sunday" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

 

 

 

field trips, STEM botany, elementary

Comments

  1. Shaunna @ Fantastic Fun and Learning says

    April 21, 2013 at 6:50 am

    I love the suggestion to laminate the scavenger hunt and use dry erase markers so the kids can trade and reuse later. Thanks for including our seed activities!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      April 21, 2013 at 11:21 pm

      Your seed activities were really fun. I remember doing a couple of things similar to the sorting activity when the kids were younger and my daughter still drags it out from time to time.

  2. Phyllis at All Things Beautiful says

    April 21, 2013 at 7:51 am

    I would love to go to a botanical garden. Perhaps we will go to the one in DC.

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      April 21, 2013 at 11:22 pm

      I bet that one is gorgeous!

  3. Claire says

    April 21, 2013 at 3:03 pm

    A scavenger hunt with your own photos is a SERIOUSLY good idea!! I’m stealing that one for my pond study for the two youngsters. Thank you Ticia!!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      April 21, 2013 at 11:23 pm

      Oh, that is perfect to tie in with your pond study!

  4. Lindsay @ Bytes of Memory says

    April 21, 2013 at 5:23 pm

    What a great activity! I should make one of these for our local arboretum! I think our friends would love it!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      April 21, 2013 at 11:24 pm

      I’m sure they will. I can’t wait to use the ones I just made this week on our field trip!

  5. maryanne @ mama smiles says

    April 21, 2013 at 5:53 pm

    I love this idea! It would work great with museums, too!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      April 21, 2013 at 11:25 pm

      Oh that’s a good application as well! I should take some pictures for the museums we frequent.

  6. Lula B says

    April 25, 2013 at 1:27 am

    I’d never thought of using collage photo sites like that – what a great idea. Thanks for the inspiration. And thanks for the feature! Lucinda

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      April 27, 2013 at 12:47 pm

      Thanks! I had tried it before where I printed off the pictures at a store, but that just meant I lost the pictures and wasted money. I’m so excited about using these!

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Ticia Adventures in Mommydom Hi, I'm Ticia! This is the adventures of my family in life and learning. Follow along with us as we share our adventures. We're having a lot of fun and learning as we go.

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