City Scavenger Hunt

The most common situation and the least served. There is more living in a city street than anyone expects, and finding it changes how a child sees where they live.

The hunt

Print it, write it on a scrap of paper, or just read it out. It works either way.

1. A plant growing where nobody planted it

2. Moss or lichen

3. An insect

4. A bird, and where it is nesting

5. Water going somewhere

6. A tree, and how old you think it is

7. Something an animal has eaten or damaged

8. The greenest thing on this street

How to run it

Thirty minutes on one street. Walk slowly. The whole activity depends on going slower than feels natural.

Item one is the heart of it. Plants growing out of walls, kerbs and drains are surviving without help, and a child who starts noticing them cannot stop.

For younger children

Four items and hold hands near roads. Plant, bird, insect, green thing.

For older children

Map it. Mark every find on a sketch of the street and look for a pattern. Life clusters where there is water, shelter and nobody sweeping, and children work that out themselves from their own map.

What to do afterwards

Come back to the same street in a month. The change is the point, and in a city it is easy to believe nothing changes.

More like this

Every hunt on this site is free and needs no preparation. See the Start Here pages if you want them ordered by age.