Guess My Vacation

Save trinkets and treasures from your summer vacation for this back-to-school guessing game. Collect small items that represent the place or places you visited this summer, like shells, postcards, salt-water taffy, key chains, magnets, etc... Decorate a gift bag or lunch bag like ours. 

For kindergarten through second grade we call the game “Guess My Vacation.” For third through fifth, we call it “Guess My Vacation Location.” You can print the label appropriate for your grade level.

Fill the bag with some items from your vacation, plus a sealed envelope containing the name of the place you vacationed. Pull out one item at a time. Ask the class to use their inference skills and guess where you might have gone by looking at each item. Make a list of their guesses. After all items have been removed from the bag, open your envelope to show the answer.

Teachers of third to fifth grade can use trickier items like a picture of the continent where the vacation was located or a postcard of its native animals. Students can guess using the 20 questions method. “Was your vacation in the Northern Hemisphere?” “Was your vacation below the equator?” “Was the climate tropical?”  “Were their mountains?”

As a follow-up, send home paper lunch bags with each student. Have them adhere a label like ours to the front of their bags or let them decorate it themselves. Also give them envelopes and an index card or scrap of paper to write and seal up the answer. Ask them to gather a few small items that represent where they went or what they did on their summer vacation. If any students didn’t go on a vacation, encourage them to cut magazine pictures or draw pictures to show a place they would like to visit.

In a few days, the students will return to school with their bags in hand, ready to play “Guess My Vacation!”