Moving Creatively in the Classroom (PE)

The Main Adventure: Holiday Treasure Hunt

By Michele Batz, PhD

This is a K-5 lesson plan for a holiday or themed treasure hunt.

Set-up:

Gather at least 80 Frisbees (flying discs) and 30 sports cones and use them to cover a square in a large room or a gym.

Underneath, place little trinkets that you've picked up, for example: eraser pumpkins, skeletons, bats, ghosts whatever you like that relates to Halloween. ( I usually do this activity in October but change it during December for other trinkets related to Christmas to hide: bells, wreaths, candy canes, elves, Santa's, mini presents, etc. This plan can also be adapted for Easter, Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, or special theme.)

Use your imagination; you can hide anything from the above to letter words for the students to form sentences.

The Hunt:

Divide your class into four teams and assign them what items they are finding. For example:

Team A:Pumpkins
Team B:Ghosts
Team C:Skeletons
Team D:Vampires

Next, each team takes turns going into the square to "hunt", looking under one Frisbee/cone per turn. They can only pick up the items that they are assigned to find if discovered, and then bring the items back to the team.

Only one person from each team can enter the square at a time to find their assigned items.

To make it even more fun, hide other non-assigned items like snakes or spiders under the Frisbees and cones, and when those are found, students must announce to their teams — "I found the spider!" and perform 10 jumping jacks, while the team performs with them where they are lined up to enter the square. They count together — this is great — seeing them working together and counting together.

The first team to find all their assigned items (I usually hide 6 of each) wins the game.

Game Tip:

Instruct your students that when it's not their turn, to be looking at what the other teams are doing because when they lift up a cone or Frisbee, their team items could be there. Be a hawkeye! All eyes should be on the square and what each other is doing.

Have fun with this lesson and feel free to add your spin to it. •

© 2010 Michele Batz. All rights reserved.

Michele Batz, PhD, has a masters in Administrative Education and has been an educator for 30 years at the elementary, junior high and high school levels. More »

8/25/11