Fun with Flippity: Scavenger Hunt and Easter Egg Hunt

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Over the past several years since I first started my journey as a Google Certified Educator, I've come across many teachers who have raved about what I first learned was a Google Sheets add-on: Flippity. Now that we have been home for several weeks and I am looking for creative ways to engage my students during distance learning, I have finally taken the time to explore some of the newer Flippity templates and so far, I am loving them. While the Sheets add-on is no longer available, you can still find all of their templates and demos at Flippity.net. There I found the Scavenger Hunt activity and loved how interactive it is. It's like a simplified digital Breakout EDU game, and if you know me, you know how much I love escape-style games!

Several weeks ago, Flippity released a super cute Easter version that replaced the locks with Easter eggs that turned into chocolate Easter bunnies once the puzzle was solved. How could I resist? By following the examples in the template under the Demo tab, I was able to create questions in French and embed images, video and hyperlinks. Here is my first ever Flippity Scavenger Hunt:

Under the Options tab on the Google Sheets template, you can easily customize the scavenger hunt by inputting your own text for the start message, the hint warning, and the message once the hunt is complete. You can also choose to have the questions completed in sequential order, randomize the questions and input your email address to have the results sent to you. If you do, you simply received a notification that the game was completed, how long it took to complete and the name that was inputted, which is appended to the email subject line. I love having the flexibility to customize the scavenger hunt, especially the ability to add clues, and that I can use it for my French classes.

Fun with Flippity: Easter Egg Hunt Options - French

How to Customize Your Own Flippity Scavenger Hunt

Find the Scavenger Hunt template at Flippity.net and click on the Template option.
When prompted, select "Make a copy." If you aren't already, make sure you as signed in to you Google account. Then rename the file.
Under the Demo tab, replace the demo questions and answers but also take note of how they coded the hints should you wish to embed images, videos or hyperlinks. I copy and pasted the demo hints elsewhere for reference. If you look at my hints below, I have changed the font colour to blue to show you what part of the code you would replace with the URL for either the image, YouTube video or the website.
Customize the settings under the Options tab.
Once complete, you will need to publish the Google Sheet by going to File - Publish to the web and the click on Publish.
Then go to the Get the Link Here tab to find the link that you would share with your students.

One of the things I love about Flippity is that, because the spreadsheet is published, any changes I make to it will show up in the game, unless of course someone is in the middle of a game. In that case, if they click on Refresh, they will have access to the updated version.

If you'd like a copy of the French Easter Egg Hunt above, just click on the Share icon at the bottom and click on the Google Sheet icon to access the file in View Only mode. From there, you can select File - Make a copy.