Make this fun outdoor play activity with this DIY paint chip colour scavenger hunt game! Fab for a nature themed activity to keep the kids busy and observant as they play outside, in the garden, park, woods or as part of Forest School too.
Paint chip activities are so fun to make as the resources are free and there are so many different ways to adapt them for play and creativity. You find them in the hardware/ DIY store in the paint section and they’re for taking home as sample cards. I tend to ask before I take them as I want so many at one time, so maybe you want to check too in case! They’re generally very willing for you to have them.
How to make a paint chip colour scavenger hunt:
Materials needed:
paint chip cards in a variety of natural colours that you might realistically find outside
If possible find the ones with windows in them as these are PERFECT little viewfinders for the colour matching!
Both the single hole puncher and the ring clips are useful for so many other little DIY games and art activities so they’re worth adding to the craft tool kit.
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Simply punch a hole in the top corner opposite where the paint chip colour name is written (you want to still be able to read those for fun!) then arrange them in whatever order you choose. I wanted to try and group the colours together and even have them slightly in a tonal order, but it was quite hard to do. Let the kids make suggestions about how to arrange them too.
Then loop them onto the metal ring clip and click it shut.
Ready to go and play the paint chip colour scavenger hunt game!
We made a few chart rings and set off in the park (via the cafe!) and started trying to match the colours with whatever we could find. Some of the items weren’t even in nature and they were an awesome match, such as the mint coloured pepper grinder on the cafe table!
This obviously works better at some times of years than others as we were able to colour match lots of different variations of flowers that were in full bloom at the time.
It would be great for holiday too so that you could look out for unusual flora in foreign places! 
But the shades of green were abundant too and in some ways the hardest of all to match as there were so many variations everywhere, in trees, leaves, grasses and stems too!
I actually think it would be amazing to create an entire paint chip colour scavenger hunt using JUST shades of green! It would be a really fabulous challenge for older kids particularly and could be a great prompt before a series of art lessons about creating a range of hues of one colour.
Follow it up with a study/ giant cooperative painting based on Rosseau’s “Tiger in a Tropical Storm” and it would be amazing!
This activity was inspired by the absolutely amazing Valerie at Inner Child Fun who did a colour match activity like this years and years back!
If you loved this paint chip colour match scavenger hunt activity then please give it a shout out and share on social media to share the love! Thank you.
You might love this post where I collected Inspiring Outdoor Play Spaces too!
And here are 60 Nature Play Ideas for Kids to keep them playing outside ALL YEAR AROUND!
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