Fun Scavenger Hunt for Preschoolers to Learn Letters & Numbers

This learning scavenger hunt for preschoolers is one of our 32 scavenger hunt ideas for kids, and one of my absolute favorites.

Scavenger hunts are always great for days when we need to get moving. I often start them while I’m making supper, asking the kids to go find something.

They could be hunting for something that’s a certain color, starts with a certain letter, a number of items, and so on. It usually will keep them busy while I’m trying to get something done.

Fun Scavenger Hunt for Preschoolers to Learn Letters & Numbers

This learning scavenger hunt I set up during naptime for Henry to do when he woke up.

Preschoolers can practice upper and lowercase alphabet recognition, along with counting while going on a scavenger hunt around the house!

I posted briefly about this activity back during the 30 Days to Hands on Play Challenge. But since it was a challenge day, I didn’t want to get into the details of what the activity all involved.

The challenge day was to “Go on a Hunt.” And that’s what we did!

A letter and number scavenger hunt for preschoolers to match!

But, I added more to it than that.

Once the letters and numbers were found, Henry had the job of matching them to their corresponding counterpart.

For letters, Henry matched his uppercase letters to my written lowercase letters.

For numbers, it was a dice-type square with the corresponding dots for that number.

My setup simply consisted of some white butcher paper (affiliate link) in which I wrote the lowercase letters and drew the numbered dice.

I placed one of each number and letter on the paper to show Henry how to match them.

I hid the foam letters and numbers (affiliate link) around the house during nap. When Henry woke up, he was ready for his hunt to begin.

This was so fun watching him, first of all, go look for the letters, but to then come back to the paper and find where to put it.

Some he knew quickly, and others he really had to concentrate to figure it out.

The numbers proved to be the most difficult, making him work on one-to-one correspondence and his counting.

At that time, Henry could easily count to five consistently, but 5-10 were sometimes mixed up. Though he could do it.

Update: Six months later, he’s counting to 12 consistently! Amazing how fast the child’s mind grows, isn’t it?

We love to do scavenger hunts around here, but I often struggle with finding fun new fresh ideas on what to “hunt” for. And I love this learning version of the hunt.

I hope to come up with some more learning scavenger hunts for different areas of learning.

What learning can you do on a scavenger hunt for preschoolers?