Indoor Geography Scavenger Hunt + printable

This indoor geography scavenger hunt will help you turn an afternoon at home into a fun hands-on learning experience. It’s perfect for kids of all ages and will help your kids explore themes of geography.

Materials

This scavenger hunt requires almost no prep from you! All you need is your home that is most likely already filled with imports from around the world.

Your job is to help your kids notice how geography impacts their everyday life by influencing the products that you purchase and bring into your home. Get ready to have some fun geography conversations with your kids after this scavenger hunt. Because this activity is concerned with more than just locating countries on a map.

However, you will want to grab a world map or globe so you can locate countries easily. You’ll also want to have a place to record items and country of origin. You can grab a ready-made import data sheet at 4onemore.com

Here’s the purpose of this geography scavenger hunt.

Discussing Geography Themes

 The five themes of geography are:

• location
• place
• human-environment interaction
• movement
• region

Many of us focus on location and place exclusively when teaching geography to our kids. Let’s face it – that’s a huge task in itself to learn where the countries and physical landforms are located! But geography becomes even more interesting when we include those other three themes in our studies. This indoor scavenger hunt focuses on the theme of movement. Here’s how to do it.

The simple plan of this geography scavenger hunt is to collect about 20 items from around the house, note where the item was produced or grown, and find it on the map. It’s a great hands-on activity to do on a day when you can’t get outside or you need something different to shake things up in your homeschool. Gather all the kids – this activity is great for all ages, even your teens. 

This scavenger hunt is fun when you look at a variety of household items. Consider things like:

• Electronics
• Clothing
• Medicine
• Produce
• Office supplies
• Craft supplies
• Shoes
• Furniture
• Toys

If your kids are mid-elementary aged or above, you can show them several videos that explain the concept of imports and exports. The topic of imports and exports falls into the Movement Theme when discussing themes of geography. And it’s one theme that we don’t always think to discuss with our kids. That’s what makes this scavenger hunt a good conversation starter.

Scavenger Hunt Questions

Finally, take each origin country and figure out how that item may have travelled to your home. Possibly by air? Container ship? Railroad? Have your kids map out a few possibilities using a blank world map.

After you have completed your scavenger hunt, watched videos that explain imports and exports, and located all your origin countries on a world map, finish the activity by discussing the following questions.

• What would your household be like if international trade didn’t exist or was restricted?
• What effect does trade restriction have on a country?
• Why do countries impose trade restrictions?
• Are there any current events news stories regarding trade?
• What products are being made primarily in your country?

Using the above questions will help expand this geography activity into something that is high-level enough for your teens to engage with the content.

Related Geography Resources

Free Giant Maps for Your Homeschool

Homeschool Geography Mini Lessons Round-Up

World Maps Geography Mini Lesson

Longitude & Latitude Mini Lesson