How to Use Back To School Scavenger Hunts to Spice Up the Start of School!

Ahh…the moment when you realize that you are going back to school really soon!  There’s nothing like the combination of excitement, stress, anxiety, and absolute happiness this thought brings!  Whether you’re a student, parent, teacher, or librarian…this time of year always brings a variety of these feelings at some point.  Call me crazy…but I LOVE IT! Strangely enough, it’s also one of the times that I’m the most creative!  That’s probably because I get so busy and have no time to work on things…gotta love Murphy’s Law, right!? LOL!

I always like to start off the year with some sort of “get to know the library” activity. In the past, I’ve written about several different Back to School Scavenger Hunts that I did with my 3rd-5th graders.  The first one I created was several years ago, and took the kids all around the library to highlight the different sections.  You can read more about this activity here.

Last year, I really wanted to start off the year with reading the book, The Library Dragon by Carmen Agra Deedy.  So I created a Back to School Scavenger Hunt that used events that happened in the book to take the kids on a tour of the library.  You can read more about that activity here.

Both of these Back to School Scavenger Hunt activities worked great, but I knew I wanted to do something fresh for this year, something that included the use of technology right off the bat. (Technology integration is going to be my focus for the year.)  So I spent my summer looking for an activity that I could use or adapt to fit my needs.  Boy, am I glad that I did that because I feel like I created one of the BEST beginning of the year lessons I’ve ever done!

The two activities that I smashed together to create my new beginning of the year Scavenger Hunt came from Andy Plemmons’ blog and The Techie Teacher.   If you don’t follow these guys, you need to start!  Their blogs are FILLED with TONS of great ideas!  Here’s what I did:

First, I thought about how many different sections of the library I had that I wanted the kids to know about.  I came up with these 9 areas:

1. Fiction (explaining how this section is divided into genres, make sure you find a good fit book, etc.)
2. Texas Bluebonnet Books (explaining where they are located, what they are, and how to join the Bluebonnet Wall of Fame)
3. Everybody (explaining how this section is organized by author, make sure you find a good fit book, etc.)
4. Non-Fiction (explaining how this section is organized by Dewey Decimal Number/Subject, and how to find books on different topics using the signage)
5. Biography (explaining how this section is organized by the topic, or the famous person the book is about)
6. Reading Nook/Texas 2×2 books (explaining the reading buddy stuffed animals and how to use them properly, explaining the Texas 2×2 books)
7. Computer station (explaining where the laptops, iPads, and chromebooks are located and reminding students about Digital Citizenship)
8. Makerspace (explaining how the 5 S.T.E.A.M. stations are set up)
9. Circulation Desk (explaining how to check in old books and check out new books)

Next, I went through the “Getting to Know My Teacher” activity that I purchased from The Techie Teacher and found 9 questions that I wanted the kids to know about me.

I created a copy of her original slideshow and deleted all the pages except for the 9 questions I had chosen.  I had this playing automatically as the kids came into the library.  You can see this here.

I created a prediction/answer record sheet but only used this with 4th and 5th graders.  For my 3rd graders, we just predicted the answers together instead of having them do it in their partner groups (to save time). (The Techie Teacher does include a record sheet in the slideshow, but since I didn’t use all the questions, I created my own.)Then I created a second copy and added in my answers.  I played this at the end of the library class to go over the answers.  You can see that here.  I also printed out on cardstock the 9 question slides to use in my video.

Following Andy Plemmons’ idea, I enlisted the help of my awesome husband to videotape me in my library. (Boy, was THAT nerve-racking!  I do NOT like to be videotaped and had to do so many retakes that I thought my husband might quit!)  After I explained the section of the library, I held up the question card and answered the question.

Once the 9 videos were made, I uploaded them to our school’s media server (but you could also easily use TeacherTube or YouTube).  Then I grabbed the URL for each video and pasted it into a QR Code generator (I love QRStuff because I can make each QR code a different color.)

Finally I created a one page poster for each of the 9 questions that had the colored QR code on it.   I also created a small sign of the QR Code Reader App.  I taped them both onto a Wire Table Stand that I had purchased from Scholastic.com.  Here’s what they looked like:

I had so much fun watching the kids get excited as they went around to the different stations!  They got SO EXCITED when their prediction on one of the questions turned out to be right!  My favorite part was when one sweet boy asked me if he could “like” the video by clicking on the “heart” so that I could “become famous”.  But his partner elbowed him and said “Dude!  We don’t want her to become famous because then she’d leave!”  Slowly, the two backed up saying “Never mind!”  It was so funny!

All in all, I feel like this was one of the best activities I’ve done for the beginning of the year!  I have already started to plan out new videos to do with my Kinder, 1st, and 2nd graders for later in the year.  I’ve also warned my husband that I will need him to help me redo some of the videos this coming summer with new questions so that each grade level can learn different things about me!  I think I’ve found a keeper!  What new things did you try for the start of the year?