Treasure Hunt Variations

Shabbat Shalom. To complete the description of the Treasure Hunt game, here are 2 variations.

This is a good Holiday activity that can be part of a class celebration.In advance of the actual celebration, give each student small (2"x1.5") post-it notes and ask the students to draw symbols of the Holiday you're celebrating (apple, lulav, menorah, dreidel, almond tree, etc) on the post-it notes. Collect the post-it notes, but don't tell the students what you plan to do with them. Before your class celebration, stick the notes around the classroom, on wall displays and also on objects. All notes should be visible, so that students don't have to move anything or climb on anything...visible, but not obvious, as this is a searching game. On "Go!" the students search and gather as many notes as they can find in a few minutes - set a timer. The student who gathers the most notes wins. The class can follow the game with a discussion of the meaning of the symbols on the notes.

This version of Treasure Hunt requires the students to tell where they find the treasures - in Hebrew. The goal is to give students a chance to practice Hebrew vocabulary including prepositions. Flashcards with Hebrew nouns that the students are studying are the treasures. There should be one flashcard for each student. Place the flash cards on the walls and on objects in the class. Each student finds a flashcard and tells where he/she found it. For example, a student finds the flashcard with the word "yeled" taped to the chalkboard. The student says, "Yeled al ha luach." Another student finds a flashcard with the word "sefer" tacked next to an Israeli flag on the wall. The student says, "Sefer al yad ha degel." This game works best when many of the objects in the classroom (luach, degel, kiseh, shulchan, chalon, etc) have been labeled since the first day of class.

You can probably suggest other types of classroom search games. Please share them in your comments.

More to come...Back-to-School preparations continued