Time to Kill Boredom the Fun Way!

Another week has gone by. Kids have finished another history report, this time on the American Revolution. We were entering the weekend and I decided we needed some fun in our lives. Okay, the kids needed fun in their lives. Unlike Mom, they can't spend all day reading and be fine.

So I thought... why not a scavenger hunt? But this one would be different than last time. That one was too easy. Too quickly over. No, no. This time it needed to be more of a challenge. This time I wanted multiple options. I wanted them to split up. So I created multiple paths for the girls and boys to take separately. I'm getting help from various scavenger hunt clues I found through Pinterest bloggers. After creating a new board that will be dedicated to scavenger hunts, I took ones that I knew would be useful in our particular household and wrote them down on some business cards I had that the printer messed up. Though note cards work just as well.

Fun looks like this:

One blog post in particular caught my attention. They listed out so many other options that you can incorporate! *Light bulb moment* Now I'm in the zone to really spark the fun. I tried out Word Search Clue. I created a word search that could be solved by eliminating all the letters of a different word.

Then I pushed myself to go a little harder. I wrote 2 messages backwards so that they can become Mirror Messages! And let me tell you, I impressed myself!

Then, while everyone was sleeping, I got to work hiding them all. With them, are things they enjoy. Small things. The idea is, the more you participate, the more "treasures" you will find.

Then I wrote a note explaining my little game. I left the note where they were sure to find it.

Normally, they would've just followed the clues to find their treasures. However, my daughter decided that wasn't enough. She started going around the house and looking for the clues out of order. Oh, the argument I woke to the next morning.... So the next one I do, will have changes.

What can you do when you have multiple kids?

Color coordinate the clues. Then tell them they are only allowed to go after their colors.

Put their names on each clue so that they know if they picked up the wrong clue, they need to put it back and find their own.

My husband had the idea of creating ciphers for each child. Then code their clues. Only their cipher will decode the clue so they can find the next one. This one is trickier, but would definitely make it challenging for them.

Another idea my husband had is to make it so that each clue they find holds a piece of the puzzle towards solving a final riddle that will give the location of a prize OR would be the code to a locked box where the final prize is hidden.

Overall....

Have fun! I spent a few hours working on this one. Trying to get the clues to line up just right and keep the kids all going to their own clues. Which is why I really wasn't happy when I caught my daughter cheating in the game. But ultimately, I created something that would have been so much fun. Keep that in mind as you make yours. It needs to be fun for them, but you will do a better job if you are having fun while you make it!

Let me know what you think! Leave me a comment below on your thoughts. What would you change? What ideas might you have? I'd love to hear them!