I made a scavenger Easter egg hunt for my daughter. She had so much fun and begged for another one. We watch Double Dare on YouTube and are big Amazing Race Fans. So I decided to make her next scavenger hunt have challenges like on those games shows.
The last day of school I picked her up and handed her a note. The note described her mission, which was to find summer. (For this activity summer was a basket from the dollar store filled with summer goodies. More on that later).
In the letter it had a secret deciphering code and a clue to her next clue. At each clue was an activity and a clue to the location of the next clue. We had activities both inside and outside. You could even send them to a neighbor who was willing to be a part of it.
Here are some examples of stations/clues:
This is here reading her about the mission. (For a top secret mission I just google searched image top secret. I choose that logo to go on clues and notes.)
The above picture is her clue that was written backwards. (That is her concentrating face.)
Below is her eating a frozen whip cream pie. Under the whip cream was a cool in a sandwich baggie. The messier the clues the more fun she had.
Below is the popped balloons. All the balloons had a piece of paper in them. That way she couldn't just shake them to feel if there was a clue inside. She had to pop to discover a lot of "not it" clues.
Below is a sample of clue that she had to decode. The clues were vague like "back yard" or "mommy's favorite reading spot."
Below is the messiest, yuckiest clue. I filled a small cooler up with cooked pasta. I buried letters (from a board game). She had to find all the letters and then figure out what the letters spelled. I gave her a spoon but she wanted to get as messy as possible. The funny part was the letters spelled "clean up". The next clue was in the bathtub.
Below is a clue at her play house. The window was covered with paper. She had to use her homemade sling shot/marshmallow shooter to break the paper down. I found an easy to make one on pinterest.
Happy ending to the search. I bought a laundry basket from the dollar store. I filled it with items for this summer. The big items were a tennis racquet and a cheap microscope ($10 at Walmart). She was taking tennis lessons this summer and needed the racquet. Most of the items were from the dollar store, like sparklers, sand toys, pool toys, etc. I am thinking about doing on to mark the start of school. We have spent the summer doing little obstacle courses and scavenger hunts. She loves them.
(PS sorry for the delay in posting this. The summer just flew by.)
