You want to take your children on the ultimate treasure hunt for their birthday? Here are some quick tips and tricks to make your kids happy hunting! There are fun games and scavenger hunt clues for kids, quizzes and murder mystery games suitable for adults of all ages and specially-designed products for seasonal celebrations such as Halloween and Christmas, Easter, or summer. On the Grapevine’s website, visitors will find ready-made products for celebrations and other events. You’ll find everything you require from murder mysteries to pub quizzes and incredible themed treasure hunts that are great for kids.
1. Plan your route
You have the option of sending your children through a walkable neighborhood or inviting them to meet up at a park.
2. Locate the best spots
Children’s houses, that huge cottonwood tree at the park, the slide in the playground, the hammock from someone’s back yard, a favorite neighbour who might ask the children to do 10 jumping jacks and then hand over the clue. Each clue should be reached within five minutes of the children walking.
3. Number the clues and write them down. Then, put them in numbered envelopes.
I made some terrible poetry (“This clue hides/At a very long slides”), and had a lot of fun making little puzzles for kids to solve. The first clue will be given to the children, which will take them to the next.
4. Plan ahead! Give yourself plenty of time
It took me around an hour to map out the route, find good clues, and then write down the hints. The physical preparation felt less difficult once the mental work was completed.
5. Get helpers’ buy-in
To find out if they had any clues, I spoke to friends and neighbours in advance. All of them said yes. One family even gave me their password to their shed’s lock so that I could find a secret key inside.
6. It’s easy to set it up
My kids were taken out by their grandparents on the morning of the party. I then drove around the neighborhood and gave the clues to the neighbors. To secure clues to posts and tree trunks, I had packing tape and scissors.
7. Be prepared for any contingencies
To ensure that they didn’t get wet in the rain, I wrapped all the clues up in plastic bags. For the event that any of the clues were lost or stolen, I printed extra copies to ensure they were available for anyone who was unable to access them.
8. To keep things interesting, you can add random rewards
Three to four stations were marked with clues. They came with juice boxes, candies (I assumed they would get thirsty), or dollar-store toys such as bouncing balls.
9. Establish ground rules before you go
Children need to learn to be with their group, wait for one another before moving on, pick up litter, and wait for an adult crossing major roads.
10. Follow them
I was not prepared to let two excited second-graders race through the streets on their own. It would have been great to have at least two adults to help the second-graders race with the faster kids and to keep up with the dawdlers.
11. Delegate
It doesn’t take you all to do it. The pinata was procured by my kids’ other parent. My dad set it up, and we barbecued while the children were out hunting. Stephanie, a friend of mine, took the dog from its yard and wanted it to come with us on the treasure hunt. It turns out that a treasure hunt in the neighborhood takes place in a village.