“I’m bored! There’s nothing to do.”
The first month of summer is not even over yet, and a lot of Mississippi kids have already voiced this complaint – probably more than once.
Well, the teacher in me always loved creating a summer scavenger hunt for my kids. Ours usually started around the house and sometimes branched out to include nearby family and friends.
But today’s kids are a whole lot more tech-savvy than mine were. To be honest, they are probably a little bit (or a lotta bit, as my oldest child often said) addicted to the worldwide web and their screens. So, prying those multiple devices from their hands and eyes is almost impossible. But it can be done – with some innovation and perseverance.
In fact, go ahead and let your kids begin with their beloved devices as you map out a Mississippi history scavenger hunt, tailored just for you, your family, and the area around you. That’s right; do a little homework, and then, fool them at their own game.
Start here, with the online site for the Mississippi State Historical Marker Program: https://www.hmdb.org/results.asp?Search=Series&SeriesID=351.
With over 900 historic markers archived and administered by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, this website is a treasure house of information. The historic markers are located around the state (and even beyond), and they are listed alphabetically on the website, by county of physical location.
This alphabetical aspect makes it easier to plot a course for your family scavenger hunt. Please note that even though a printable download of the entire list of markers is available, it is not formulated alphabetically. (But the teacher in me thinks this could add another layer of learning and intrigue to the scavenger hunts.)
Either way, just start this adventure with your endgame in mind. Do you want this hunt to be a strictly indoor activity, or will you want your family to actually take their hunt to the roads of Mississippi?
Both approaches will work, but I think a two-phase scavenger hunt makes for the most fun in this learning adventure. Do some homework and formulate questions that can be answered from the historic marker database.
You could make the questions easy with a straightforward, fact-based answer required, or you could create riddle-style questions. You could even personalize the game and create different, age-appropriate questions for each child.
To add a level of difficulty, instruct your kids to find their needed answers from an online source other than the historic marker website, and then check their answers via the Mississippi marker site. You could even create some math (latitude and longitude) and geography questions using the mapping option offered on the website.
But I started a little more simply by creating our first online scavenger hunt with a few simple questions about historic markers found right here in Lee County where we live.
Once my young hunters answer those questions, we will take a little trip to visit those marker sites. After our successful hunt, a trip to the historic Johnnie’s Drive In in Tupelo, Mississippi, will be the perfect prize.
Who knows! Our scavenger hunt could be the beginning of an entire summer of history hunting here inside our home state.
We could investigate markers in surrounding counties one day and travel to check them out the next day. The kids could create a scavenger hunt for the adults. And we could even add marker scavenger hunting to our vacation travel as we head toward the Mississippi Gulf Coast later in the summer.
Between the Mississippi State Historical Marker Program, and the other, totally separate state marker databases of the Mississippi Freedom Trail, Mississippi Blues Trail, Mississippi Country Music Trail, and Mississippi Mound Trail, the possibilities for summer fun and learning on a historic Mississippi scavenger hunt are endless.
So, on your mark-er! Get set! Go!
