Today is National Scavenger Hunt Day, and in my family this is a day that’s worth celebrating! There is not much my boys love more than an adventure based game that challenges them.
Now this shouldn't come as that big of a surprise, as I have always loved this sort of thing too. The first serious scavenger hunt I remember being a part of was in junior high. The teachers and faculty put together a week long hunt for the students that had the entire school buzzing. I will never forget (not finding) the fire extinguisher. In our school every extinguisher was mounted to the wall along with an overtly obvious sign and identification number. On our scavenger hunt clue sheet, only the 4 digit ID number was given; and I along with the majority of other students never found it. For the rest of my years at that school, every time I left Mr. Robideau’s classroom I glanced at that stupid extinguisher (and ID number) in the hall, rolled my eyes and shook my head.
From there things just got crazier and a lot more fun. Vehicles were added in making city-wide hunts possible, GPS coordinates and the introduction of geocaching and then the smartphone added one more element which made photo and selfie scavenger hunts possible.
So, why would I be surprised that my boys are both keenly observant and eager to challenge their memories and brain power in an adventure based activity like this?
Even though my kids are only 3 and 5 years old, there are still a lot of options and creative ideas to facilitate a fun scavenger hunt. We’ve played alphabet based hunts (find something that starts with the letter “A”), we’ve done colour based hunts (find something that is green), shape based (find something that is a circle), and even texture based (find something squishy). But when we need an even bigger challenge, like on a day like today… we either use the official game cards or I will run around the neighborhood quickly and snap 20 pictures, and then print them off for a photo matching scavenger hunt.
If you’re looking for something to do today, scavenger hunts can be adapted to pretty much any environment, including as few or as many people as desired and can be tailored to any skill level. So, give it a try today. You never know how much you may enjoy it until you give it a shot.