Music scavenger hunt for kids at home

A music scavenger hunt sends children around the house to find sounds, or into a piece of music to find things to hear. This page has three hunts with lists to copy. Each one takes about fifteen minutes. A pencil, a list, and a speaker are all the equipment.

Hunt 1: the sound hunt

Each child finds one object in the house for each line of the list. Instruments do not count. The child brings the object back, or leads the group to it, and plays the sound.

Find something that:

1. Rings when it is tapped
2. Rattles when it is shaken
3. Makes a low boom
4. Makes a high ting
5. Makes a scraping sound
6. Makes a sound that lasts a long time
7. Makes a sound that stops at once
8. Can be played loud and soft
9. Makes two different notes
10. Makes a sound when air moves through it

Agree first on what is off limits, such as glasses on a high shelf.

Clue	Things children find
Rings	A metal bowl, a pot lid, a bunch of keys
Rattles	A jar of rice, a box of pasta, a tin of buttons
Low boom	An empty bin, a big cardboard box
High ting	A spoon on a mug
Scrapes	A comb, a zipper, a piece of ridged cardboard
Lasts a long time	A pot lid held by its handle
Stops at once	A wooden spoon on a book
Two notes	Two cups with different amounts of water
Air	An empty bottle to blow across

Sort the finds

Lay out the finds and sort them by how the sound is made: struck, shaken, scraped, or blown. An orchestra sorts its instruments in a similar way. Instruments that are struck, shaken, or scraped belong to the percussion family. Instruments that are blown belong to the woodwinds or the brass. Read percussion instruments for kids and the four families of the orchestra.

Then turn the finds into a band. Read homemade instruments for kids.

Hunt 2: the listening hunt

Play one piece of music. The children tick each thing on the list when they hear it. A raised hand at each find lets the group agree.

Listen for:

1. A loud part
2. A soft part
3. A part that gets louder little by little
4. A fast part
5. A slow part
6. One kind of instrument playing alone
7. A drum or a cymbal
8. A tune that comes back
9. A sudden stop or a silence
10. The last note

Piece	What is in it
“In the Hall of the Mountain King”, by Grieg	A soft start, a loud end, a tune that comes back about 18 times, cymbals, and short silences near the end
Surprise Symphony, second movement, by Haydn	A soft tune, one loud bang, and a tune that comes back in new forms
William Tell Overture, by Rossini	Cellos alone at the start, a storm, a calm tune for the English horn, and a gallop
Hungarian Dance No. 5, by Brahms	Fast parts, slow parts, and sudden stops
“Morning Mood” from the Peer Gynt Suite, by Grieg	A tune passed between the flute and the oboe, and a slow build to a loud part

For a card version of this hunt, use the listening bingo maker.

Hunt 3: the hunt for musical things

This hunt suits younger children and rainy days. Find:

1. Something with strings
2. Something with keys or buttons that plays a note
3. A bell
4. A book with a song in it
5. A picture of an instrument
6. Something with a music note printed on it
7. Something that plays music with no person touching it
8. Something to tap a beat on
9. A toy that makes a sound
10. The oldest recording in the house

How to run a hunt

• Ages 3 to 5: five clues, read aloud, with a grown-up as a partner.
• Ages 6 to 8: ten clues on a printed list, alone or in pairs.
• Ages 9 to 12: teams, a time limit, and a rule that no two teams may bring the same object.

Use music as the timer. Play a piece, and the hunt ends when the music ends. “Flight of the Bumblebee” gives a hunt of about a minute and a half. “In the Hall of the Mountain King” starts at a creep and ends in a rush, which suits the last seconds of a hunt.

Score it. Give one point for each find. Give a bonus point for a find that no one else has.

Take the hunt outside

A sound walk is a hunt with no objects. Walk for ten minutes and list every sound: a bird, a car, wind in the leaves, footsteps on gravel, a dog, a door. Back home, sort the list into high and low, loud and soft, or made by people and made by nature. The Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer wrote listening exercises of this kind for schools.

For birds in music, read classical music about birds.

At a concert

For a hunt in a concert hall, print the concert scavenger hunt. It gives a child 18 things to spot from a seat.

Print and play

Use a listening journal page to record the listening hunt. Print the instrument families listening chart for the sorting game. For more ideas, read music appreciation activities for kids and music games for kids with no equipment.