A Cemetery Scavenger Hunt Makes a Great History Lesson

A cemetery scavenger hunt is a simple way to study local history with your kids! With a clipboard, pencil, and my free printable, you’ll look for names, dates, and symbols that tell the story of the people remembered there.

We’ve visited several cemeteries while studying Kentucky history, and there’s always something to talk about. A veteran’s headstone can connect to a war we’ve studied, or a familiar last name can send us looking into who a local street was named after.

Below, you’ll find the printable and ideas for planning your own cemetery visit.

A History Lesson in Your Own Community

Local history gives kids a connection to the places they pass every day. A name on a school or street sign becomes much more interesting when they start learning about the person behind it!

A cemetery visit gives them a place to begin. They can look for family relationships, birthplaces, occupations, military service, and messages written in someone’s memory. Reading carefully, comparing dates, and sketching symbols all help them notice details they might otherwise walk right past.

My free printable cemetery scavenger hunt guides you through these activities without requiring you to know all the answers before you arrive.

Before Your Cemetery Visit

Spend a little time learning about the cemetery and the community it serves. Your library, local museum, or historical society can suggest people to look for and explain their connections to your town. Our small-town museum has exhibits about county history that have given us some good starting points!

Before heading out, review the cemetery’s visiting hours and rules. Talk with your kids about walking carefully, speaking quietly, giving other visitors privacy, and leaving headstones and decorations undisturbed. For a group outing, contact the cemetery ahead of time to arrange your visit.

Get the Free Cemetery Scavenger Hunt

I’ve updated the printable with 18 activities across eight pages, including space for written answers, symbols, and headstone drawings.

Your kids will look for things like:

• The earliest death date they can read
• Names that match local streets or buildings
• Evidence of military service
• A birthplace recorded on a headstone
• Different symbols and headstone shapes
• A person to learn more about after the visit

Enter your email below, and I’ll send you the free printable!

Enjoy the Scavenger Hunt

Print the pages you want to use, grab pencils and clipboards, and head to a local cemetery!

You don’t need to complete every activity. Younger kids might enjoy finding shapes and drawing symbols, while older kids spend more time reading inscriptions and working with dates. Everyone can take part in the same outing without doing exactly the same work.

The hunt may take more than one visit, and you can use it again at another cemetery. There will be different names, designs, and questions waiting for you there.

Make More Local History Connections

The printable gives you a starting point. Your community’s history can suggest other things to investigate:

• Find a person you’ve learned about locally. A museum exhibit, historical marker, or library book might mention someone buried in the cemetery.
• Look for veterans of a particular war. Record the names and service details you find.
• Investigate a familiar street name. Check local records to learn whether the street was named for someone whose headstone you found.
• Look into a year that appears repeatedly. Several deaths close together might raise questions about an illness or disaster. Research what happened rather than assuming the dates tell the whole story.

Headstones give us clues, but they don’t always give us the answers. Checking those clues against other records is part of learning how to study history!

After the Cemetery Scavenger Hunt

After our hunts, we mostly just talk about what we noticed. We might wonder about a family, discuss a memorial, or decide to find out why a building bears someone’s name.

The printable includes an optional research page to help your kids learn more about a person they chose during the visit. A librarian or historical society can help you find a place to start.

I don’t like to “ruin” field trips with too many additional assignments. A good conversation is often plenty! For kids who want to keep going, a history research project gives them room to follow that interest. They could share what they learn through a written report, slideshow, video, or display.

I’d love to hear what your family discovers during your cemetery scavenger hunt!

Other Great History Resources

   

 

History Resources from the Our Journey Westward Shop