The game we played at the kids’ birthday party this year was a lot of fun! They LOVE coloring, painting, colors, and rainbows so I told them we were going on a treasure hunt to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There were no winners or losers and there was treasure for all, but everyone had to participate to get the bits of clue, put each in its right place, and guess the answer. My kind of game and perfect for the younger kids but still fun for the older ones. Important since we had quite an age range there!
I decided what the clue was going to be, wrote it out and chopped it up into enough pieces that we’d have a clue for each kid at the party. Then I laid them out in order on a separate paper and using crayons I color coded each part of the clue to its place. I scribbled with the crayon on the top of the piece and right above where it went.
Next I put all the little papers in a container and the container up in the fort in our backyard. The kids took turns running to the fort, climbing up the ladder or rock wall, getting a clue, and sliding (or climbing) down again. Then they brought the clue to me. I had the key and tape. They matched their clue color to the right color on the key and I taped it in place.
When we had every piece in place and the clue was complete I let the birthday girl read it out loud. Toward the end I kept the key hidden from the older kids… or someone would have blurted the answer. I still had a couple mischievous attempts… I also had to instruct the kids to talk through the answer not just run for the treasure… they may have stampeded anyway and almost trampled a baby. Treasure hunts are brutal. 😉
So the treasure was hidden, you may have guessed by my clue, in the oven the night before the party. Of course this was after I clearly thought through that I was not going to bake anything the next day… Very important to consider that, knowing my brain when I get tired! We could have had melted treasure… and very sad kids. But no, it was all a success. It started raining right after the treasure hunt. So even the weather cooperated.
The treasure was skittles, and gold coins, and… something I’d made for each of them. Which I will blog about tomorrow because it seems my blogging time is up. My 3 year old says it is “football day” and I am hogging the tv. The tv shares the monitor with the computer. So… goodbye until tomorrow…