Bored and inactive kids lose their creativity and health. You need to amaze them with an adventurous treasure hunt.
Though it sounds overwhelming, you can create a treasure hunt for kids conveniently. The success comes down to the planning and step-by-step execution.
Why should you plan a kids’ treasure hunt?
It is easy to allow your kids to watch online or TV shows all day long. If they are busy watching stuff, they won’t feel bored. However, this impacts the health as well as the creative abilities of your kid.
Activities, which are fun to indulge in and stimulate different parts of brain, ensure strong progress. Kids learn and feel entertained.
One of such stimulating activities is treasure hunting. Kids get involved and you also get a chance to do something together with them. Even planning your treasure hunt can become a fun activity if you do it together.
Treasure hunts are usually interactive and they also tap into the creative side of kids in a fun way. This is the reason why kids of all ages love them.
Don’t know where to create a treasure hunt?!
Your home is the ultimate environment to design a great treasure hunt. If you have a backyard, use it. Choose from different styles and themes to enjoy a refreshing game of treasure hunting.
The biggest advantage of treasure hunts is that they don’t cost you a lot. All you need is a bit of creativity to use whatever items you have at home.
The Ultimate Guide to make a Treasure Hunt at Home
Here is how you can prepare a treasure hunt at home for your kids.
1. Work on a Theme
The first thing you need to do is pick a theme.
Picking a theme is not necessary to make your treasure hunt. But it definitely increases the indulgence and the element of fun in the game. So, you should work on a theme first.
Think about what your kids would like. Do they love dinosaurs?! Are they a fan of superhero characters?! Looking from the kid’s point of view, you can pick fun themes for treasure hunting.
For instance, if your kids love birds, you can buy some fake colorful eggs and plan a treasure hunt around them.
Similarly, you can choose a Disney Princess theme for your girls.
These themes are essential when you want to include kids in the game at your kid’s birthday party.
Other theme ideas include:
>>Ancient Egypt
>>Camping
>>Carnival
>>Jungle
>>Fairies
>>Princesses
>>Mystery
>>TV shows
>>Scavenger Hunt
>>Storylines
And others!
Don’t just stay limited to the given ideas. Let your creativity fly and discover unique themes for treasure hunts.
2. Design interesting clues
A most important part of treasure hunt making is the clues you create. The clues offer a hint to a player towards a spot of treasure. These clues have to be interesting and should require some work to decipher the meaning. Straightforward clues kill the fun and make the hunt boring.
Thanks to the online world, you can easily get your hands on hundreds of treasure hunt clues online. But make the selection as per your kids’ age. It shouldn’t become too difficult to figure out for them.
If your kids are old enough, you can increase the difficulty level of the clues. So, you can choose complicated riddles and let the kids figure out the meaning to find the treasure.
However, younger children require simpler clues in order to enjoy the game. So, instead of making riddles, you should create rhyming simple clues for them. If you think that your kid is way too young to understand rhyming clues, use pictures as visual clues for your treasure hunt.
You should ask kids to read the clues out loud. This would help improve reading during this fun activity.
3. Select your treasure
You need to do this in private away from kids. The treasure should be a surprise for everyone who’s supposed to play the game.
Pick a number of items you want as your treasure and put it in a beautiful treasure chest. When selecting, you should think about the interests of your kids. You can choose a number of toys, chocolate, candy, pencils, and other items.
Pick your treasure and then put it in a box. You can find plastic bins at home easily. Decorate it before putting all the items inside. You can also design a cardboard box and include kids in its decoration. But don’t let them see what you put inside the box.
Alternatively, it is also a great idea to create goody bags for special treasures and put them in different locations.
4. Put your clues in secret places
After preparing your treasure, it is time to put your clues in some secret places. You need to make sure that your kids aren’t able to see where you are putting them. The best idea would be to do this task when your kids are not home. When they are at school, you can select the hiding places for each clue.
You need to keep your kids’ age in mind here as well. Don’t put clues in places where your kids can’t reach. It would be good to make the locations challenging. But don’t select an impossible location. So, you need to achieve a balance of difficulty levels when selecting clue locations.
One important thing to remember is the distance between two clue locations. Don’t keep them too close to each other. For instance, if you put all the clues in a single room, kids might pick a wrong clue and the game will be ruined. Strategically choose far apart locations to put your clues.
5. Let the hunt begin
Till now, you have done everything to prepare the treasure hunt. This is when you can gather your kids and prepare them for the game.
Let them understand all the rules of the hunt and also make them aware of the boundaries under which they have to search. Give them the costumes and inform the theme as well.
If possible, invite your kid’s friends to indulge in the hunt. You can divide kids into groups of 5 or less. Then, they can work through the clues and hunt for a surprise treasure.
During this time, your job is to make kids understand the importance of working as a team. Help them figure out the team spirit. Also, cheer them when they find a clue and give a hint if they struggle to find a clue. Don’t give away the whole clue, just offer a small hint. They should feel they are finding the clues and understanding them on their own.
Final words
There is a vast scope of creativity around treasure hunt preparations. You can choose an indoor or outdoor location to design your treasure hunt. Public parks in your neighborhood are also a fun location to indulge in treasure hunting.
You have every step right in front of you now. Follow them and combine with your creative side.