Classroom Holiday Party Scavenger Hunt (Free Printable)

The hunt list

Thirty finds built around winter, light and celebration rather than any one holiday, with the social items worth extra points. Add a find or two for a tradition your own students celebrate.

How to run it in 20 minutes

The last party before winter break is crowded with snacks, a craft and maybe a gift swap. This hunt fits a 20-minute slot, needs nothing beyond the sheets, and gets the class moving between the sitting-down parts.

1. The day before (5 minutes). Read the list against your room, swap out anything you do not have, and print one team sheet per group of three or four.
2. Minute 0 to 3. Sort students into teams and hand out sheets and pencils. State the three rules: walking only, indoor voices, and classmates must be asked politely before they count as a find.
3. Minute 3 to 15. Start the hunt. Teams tick finds and write a word or two beside the social items, such as the holidays a classmate named. Call the time left at ten minutes and at two.
4. Minute 15 to 18. Stop signal. Teams sit, swap sheets with a neighboring team and count points for each other.
5. Minute 18 to 20. Read out the scores, ask one team to share the most interesting answer they collected, and move on to the snacks.

Shuffle is switched on, so every sheet lists the finds in a different order and eight teams scatter across the room instead of crowding one corner.

Ways to adapt it

• Traditions tour. Ask students to bring in or draw one object from a celebration their family keeps, such as a lantern, a dreidel, a kinara, a star or a paper crown, and add each to the list so the hunt doubles as show-and-tell.
• Quiet version. For a tired class, play it seated. Teams point at finds they can see from their tables, and only the social items involve standing up.
• Kindergarten helpers. Pair each team with two younger buddies who do the fetching while the older students read and record.

Tips for an inclusive room

The default finds lean on winter, light and shared celebrations and avoid religious symbols, so children who do not celebrate Christmas have as many finds as those who do.

Give the social finds a rule: a classmate may be counted by several teams, and must be asked, not grabbed. Those items carry more points on purpose, because talking to each other is the real aim of the party.

Ask any team that finishes early to write a bonus find of their own for next year's class. It keeps them busy and gives you a fresh item. This hunt opens our guide to Christmas classroom party games, which plans the whole hour.

Keeping the party safe

Walking only, with aisles kept clear of chairs, bags and coats. Decorations stay on the walls and windows; a find is pointed at or written down, never taken down. Teams stay in the classroom unless an adult goes along, and nobody climbs on furniture to reach a high shelf. The snack table is for looking during the hunt and eating afterward, with allergies checked first.

Printing team sheets

The team score sheet layout prints each find with a checkbox and a points column, plus a line for the team name. Eight copies suit a class of about 30 in teams of four; change the number to match your groups. Plain black and white is fine, and the leader sheet gives you one page to record every team's total.

If you run this hunt every year, laminate one set and let students tick with dry-erase markers.