Select Page

Summer Scavenger Hunt

By Rosemarie Griffin

Have you been looking for a fun communication-based summer activity to do with your little ones? ABA Speech has something great for you!  It is a summer scavenger hunt! This activity is so much fun to use, reuse, and get our little ones talking about something most kids enjoy, summer! The summer scavenger hunt is great for groups of children in therapy or families to work as a team and have some great communication about different summer items we find inside or outside in summertime! Children from toddler age all the way to school age will find this activity fun! Kids of all communication levels will have fun with this activity too! Check out the summer scavenger hunt today!

Easy Directions!

Scavenger hunts are so much fun for all ages!  Toddlers, preschool aged children, and school aged children will have so much fun checking off the scavenger hunt list! The summer scavenger hunt is super simple to use too. Just simply print out the scavenger hunt and go searching! Make it a team effort, or make it a game! Laminate the scavenger hunt to reuse over and over at different places or at different times. If you want, keep the scavenger hunt with you when you travel and check items off as you see them on vacation or on trips during the summer.

Language Development! 

Scavenger hunts are not just fun, but also great opportunities for building receptive and expressive language. Autistic learners always benefit from opportunities to build their communication skills. This scavenger hunt helps to encourage exploration and can be modified for all communciative levels. Children can identify items based on the pictures associated with the word by simply pointing or labeling, building receptive language. Expressive language can be expanded by having the children say the name of the item they have found. If you are ready to stretch this out even more, children can use the word in a sentence. Remember building communication skills varies depending on the child! 

When our children are really ready to express even more language, this is a great opportunity to ask questions about the objects and get kids to improve that expressive language! Start by asking how many can you find? If you are at the pool or the beach, there may be quite a few bathing suits and bottles of sunscreen to see! Ask questions like, what does it look like? What does it feel like? Do you like it? If they can touch it, what does it feel like? Soft? Hard? Depending on the child’s communication while doing the checklist, ask appropriate questions to help children start communicating! 

What Will We Find?

The items on the scavenger hunt are all summer themed and easy to find at a beach, lake, or even your backyard! They include: bathing suit, towel, pool, bike, flowers, grass, popsicle, bubbles, ball, sandals, sunscreen and sun. Take the scavenger hunt on a walk through the neighborhood or to grandma’s barbeque. The scavenger hunt can go to the beach or the lake too. If you don’t find everything at once, keep adding on different occasions or use a laminator or plastic sheet cover to reuse over and over again! Siblings are always fun to include in the scavenger hunt and working together is another great skill for our little learners to engage in together! 

Grab your copy of the summer scavenger hunt today and plan to build that communication around everyday summer items! Have some fun and work on communication skills at the same time! Get your summer scavenger hunt today!

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You might also like…

Summer Social Skills Resource

Who else is ready for sunshine and warmer weather? I am going to help you prep for a summer full of fun activities.  I will also give you ways to incorporate those social skills you have worked on all year long!  I have put together a Summer Social Skills Resource...

read more

All About That Gestalt

I believe in a world where we can all collaborate together to help our clients on their communication journeys.  We can work together to serve our students and not always see eye to eye, we can still work together!  In language...

read more

Here's a free resource–

IEP Goal Bank

Writing IEPs for autistic learners can feel daunting.


From this free download, you'll get real-life examples of specific, measurable goals for expressive language, receptive language, play skills, and imitation.

Thanks! Check your inbox.