Scavenger Hunt - Get students up and moving!

May seemed like the perfect month to create an activity for my students that would require them to get up and moving in order to read and answer questions. I wrote a basic story, Marcos se quejó mucho and then created the scavenger hunt based on the story. 

The overarching purpose was to familiarize the students with the verb QUEJARSE before watching the Sr. Wooly video, La Dentista. The previous day I had used PQA (personalized questions and answers) based  on what students, teachers, and others complain about and then asked students if they complained about various things the previous day. That class conversation paved the way for this activity.

The story is about a boy that goes to school on Friday and complained about quizzes, a teacher not being in the room to get help, an overdue library fine, and other reasons. Each place that Marcos went in the story and complained are the locations that I posted questions that students had to answer. Some questions were directly related to the story and others could be answered without the story.

Below are the instructions I handed out to the students.

Scavenger hunt

Goal:

a. to answer the 8 questions correctly in order to...

b. ...get the words for the secret questions, and

c. to unscramble the words to make a question

It should take you 15 minutes or less to find the 8 questions throughout the school, answer the questions, and return to the room to get the last WORD for the question.

1. Read the story Marcos se quejó mucho. (The locations that Marcos goes to in the story is where you will find the questions!)

He complains about 8 different things in the school. In order to know where to find the 8 posted questions, read the story and go to the 8 different places mentioned in the story.

2. Answer the questions posted throughout the school. Write the words that are written in CAPITAL LETTERS after the correct answer to the question. (Remember: you need to answer the questions correctly in order to have the correct 8 words/phrases to unscramble and form a question!)

3. After you have the 8 different words/phrases, return to Profe Hitz's class to get the 9th word.

4. With your partner/group, unscramble the question and hand it to Profe Hitz.

The two screenshots below are from the activity. The first one has a question NOT based directly on the story. The second screenshot is a question based directly on the story about Marcos.

Ideas to make this activity run smoothly:

1. Tell the students the expectations for their behavior in the hall. Email your colleagues and let them know your students will be in the halls and at what time they will be moving throughout the school.

2. Before class, I highlighted one of the 8 places on 8 different papers so students didn't all have the same starting point.

3. I put students in pairs or groups of 3.

4. I distributed the paper to group 1, which had "biblioteca" highlighted because it is the first location that Marcos visits. I told them to leave the classroom and go to the location highlighted on the paper and then continue with the story in that order.

I gave group 2 their paper, with "la clase de Inglés" highlighted and told them to start there.

For my class of 29, after I had given papers to the first 8 groups, I then gave group 9 a paper that started them at the library. It helped keep groups from all going to the same place to start. If I had extended the story to 2 or 3 more locations, that would have been even better!

5. I wrote the last word "PREFIERES" on the board after all groups had left my room. When they returned to my classroom, I directed them to look at the board and start unscrambling the words to make a question.

The story is pictured below. The directions and accompanying questions are  available HERE.  (Hopefully the link works for you!)