You can keep a large group of kids amused for hours
with a few, well planned, treasure/scavenger
hunts. Once they've
been on one hunt, the kids may decide to plan the next one by themselves.
If you have no time to plan a
treasure hunt try idea #5. It takes no planning
and is a guaranteed to keep kids interested.
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There are many different ways to plan a treasure
hunt. For younger children, an adult can hide clues in different locations.
Plan a treasure hunt with each clue leading to
the location of the next clue. You can buy a set of plastic Easter
eggs, but you don't need them. Just make the clues easy to identify
(use orange paper). Children as young as 2 can play this game by
using pictures instead of words. (e.g. Put a picture of a bathtub in
an egg. The next clue should be in the bathtub.) The final
clue would lead to the treasure (plate of cookies, invitation to go to
water slides, movie pass, lemonade). For older children, the
clues could be riddles they need to solve. In the beginning,
limit the number of clues to the age of the child ( 7year old could
follow seven clues to the treasure).
Make a treasure
map (or list of directions) that would lead to the treasure.
Use a single type of paper to make the letters
that spell out the location of the treasure (e.g. guest bed). The kids
need to find the letters, than unscramble the word to find figure out
where is the treasure.
Write up a list of common objects and have the
kids find every item. If there's lots of kids, divide them into
teams, and then give each team a list.
Get a roll of 100 pennies or any collection of
coins. Either hide the change around the house, or toss it on
the lawn or a gravel driveway. Kids will spend lots of time making
sure they've found every coin.
It was my daughter's 8th birthday and we decided to hold a Treasure Hunt for her and a few friends at my sister's home in the
countryside. Thanks to your web site I came up with a great idea of hiding
letters which in turn made up locations the kids had to get too with the final one being the treasure hiding place itself.
The whole thing took just a short time to
organize but the result was really great - all the kids (and us oldies) really enjoyed it and will probably do
the same thing again.
