Create a survey to get an understanding of the kids' interest in predetermined topics with close-ended questions. Develop surveys where the child does not need to input her own interests but rather will choose between selections or give a numerical answer on how interested she is in a topic. For example, ask her to circle the topic she is most interested in or have her rate the topics on a scale of one to three, one being most important, two undecided and three not interested at all. By looking at these surveys, you can get an idea of individual kids' interests or what interests the group combining the results.
Let kids express their interests by asking them to write out responses. Provide prompts to get them thinking and leave a blank for them to fill in their answers. Questionnaires can ask for single word answers or full paragraph responses, depending on your needs. For example, the question, "My favorite thing to do at home is___," will prompt a singular response if you simply want to know what they are interested in doing at home. Expand the response by asking why or how, such as, "My favorite thing to do at home is ___ because ___" to find out what they are interested in and what drives that interest.
Conduct an interview with kids where they can verbally express their interests. These can be individual or group interviews. Set up a formal interview where you can record responses on charts or take notes, or organize informal interviews where you simply talk to them kids. Establish a standard set of questions to ask and build from these to delve further into specific details of individual interests. The questions and direction of the interview will depend on your needs.
Learn about kids' interests by playing games. Use a variation of two truths and a lie by asking kids to share two true interests and one false interest. Everyone involved in the game guesses what the true interests are, along with the false interest. Through this game, kids share things they like and do not like to help with your interest inventory. Another game is an interest scavenger hunt. Create a sheet listing interest topics and ask kids to find others who like one or more of the interests. Kids should write the name of the person who likes the interest next to the interest on the sheet. Once kids have a full list of names, share the results with the group to see what different types of interests kids have.