Scavenger Hunt Puzzle/Riddle/Task ideas(middle school)

In My Humble Opinion
1

My fellow teachers and I are having a scavenger hunt-type game this coming Wednesday and I really need a fun puzzle or riddle for my room when the kids come in.

  1. It must be something I can duplicate 30 times with relative ease. I am scheduled to have 30 groups come to my room and the first 25 to solve the riddle/puzzle/task will advance. I can’t use, for example, a jigsaw puzzle as I would have to purchase 30 copies of it.

  2. It needs to be something solvable by middle schoolers and that would not take forever to solve.

  3. My puzzle will be solved in my room, so nothing that requires more space than that.

Anyone have any fun ideas for this? I will happily accept any and all ideas, even outside the box ones.

Thanks!

2

We have a treasure hunt or scavenger hunt every year at our family reunion. For the treasure hunt we would have to solve a clue which would lead us to a location. At that location we would have to find the next clue and solve that to determine our next destination.

Codes were common for the clues. You could make an easy one with a basic letter substitution but I also know an old civil war code that uses symbols. PM me if you want more info.

Not really a code but you could give them a sheet with a grid of letters like this (Except you need fixed width text which I can’t seem to find here):

LZZU
EHIP
XTSA
XXIS
Start at the “T” and follow a path to spell ‘This is a puzzle’.

It’s up to you if you want to indicate the starting letter, if diagonal moves are allowed, and if all the letters are used.

I considered using this Lost at Sea quiz. You can decide if they have to get all 15 items in order or you could set a point limit to determine if they pass.

Maybe a trivia quiz? Or fight some ignorance, put together a list of statements that they have to classify as myth or fact. There’s an Absurd Food Myths and Rumors thread in Cafe Society right now if you need ideas.

Do you have any budget at all? You could buy some clay and a box of 1,000 popsicle stick for a few bucks. Have them build a freestanding tower 18"/24" (however high) that stands by itself for 60 seconds. Giving them only a measured amount of clay or a limited number of sticks could make it harder.

Does any of that help?

3

You can use the code tag, either by typing it manually, or selecting your text and clicking on the # icon.



LZZU
EHIP
XTSA
XXIS
4

Thanks, folks. I ended up doing a word unscramble and allowed the use of an Ipad for it to speed it up.

It was cool and each class had cool puzzles.