Scented Rice Scavenger Hunt

This activity involves so many skills and is super hands-on to help keep kids engaged!  Students practice reading, following directions, taking turns, fine motor skills, writing, and more! 

Items you will need: 
-Gallon Bags        -Rice         -Food coloring        -Peppermint extract      -Items to hide                

Merry Christmas!!!  My students had a blast with this 2-part activity last week.  We spread this across two days because I see my kids for direct instruction only 15 minutes per day.  On the first day, we made the rice.

I found this recipe on Growing a Jeweled Rose.  She has photos to show the steps for the activity, so I just printed out her exact blog entry for my kids to follow along with (it was a few days before break and I didn't have the patience time to make anything else!).  Anyways, it is a simple activity, so it was easy for my kids to follow along with the photos!  

Basically, we just added food coloring, peppermint extract, and a few drops of water to rice in a big ziploc baggie.  Then the kids got to squish and shake to their little hearts' content.  Each group of 2 kids made their own baggie of red or green, so students had to work together and take turns in the creation process.  

I let the baggies sit open for a couple hours to dry…and by the end of the day, we were able to combine them into a big plastic tub.  I was a little worried it wouldn't smell very minty, but it turned out to smell pretty good...I even caught one of my students with his entire head in this plastic tub smelling the rice! haha. 

On day 2, I hid some different holiday themed erasers in the rice.  The kids got to dig around and look for the items.  When they found one, they had to record it on their scavenger hunt worksheet.  This is a great way to make writing a much more engaging task for your students!

If you want to do this activity in your classroom, I have created a couple FREE items for you to use!  Click here for pictures of items to use in your scavenger hunt (just laminate and cut out) and a corresponding worksheet.  

Or click here for an editable worksheet so you can add your own items list for students to hunt for.