Hunt

Hunting high and low!

Aaah Easter. It's now three days since the big event but the boys are still clamouring for me to set up yet another Easter egg hunt round the garden! It makes me chuckle. If they were just given the chocolate I'm sure they'd scoff the lot within 24 hours, but they love the hunting so much they save their little eggs so I can hide them again, and when I've had enough, they hide them for each other to find. I'm not sure what the attraction is with hunting, does it attach us back to our prehistoric roots and make us hope that we could survive even if everything wasn't handed to us on a plate?
The boys definitely enjoy all kinds of hunt (although strangely, finding a missing shoe when we're late for school is the one time it doesn't seem to appeal.)

Found one!

A scavenger hunt is a great way to keep the kids active in the great outdoors. Basically you challenge them to find particular things, either on their own or in teams, and see if they can collect the lot. There are loads of different ideas for scavenger hunts on the internet. Some we've tried have been finding things which:

•  are a particular colour-  can you find 6 yellow things, or can you find one thing for each colour of the rainbow?  
• begin with a particular letter- who can find the most things which begin with the letter b?
• are a particular shape- can you find 4 round things?
• the same but different- can you find 5 different leaf shapes or different feathers?

If you're doing it as a party activity, you could give them a list of things to find- there are lots of printables online, either in words or pictures, but I'm not generally that organised, it's usually a spur-of-the-moment challenge when they're flagging on a walk or wondering how to occupy themselves in the garden.

Can you find a creature with lots of legs?

Can you find something which rustles?

 We also used to hunt for imaginary things! If we walked through the woods we inevitably searched for Gruffalo tracks, walking cross country often included a bit of a bear hunt- "Uh oh! Mud! Thick, oozy mud!" When the boys dressed up in their Knightly costumes they hunted dragons and other monsters, foam swords in hand.

What can you find at the bottom of a rock pool?

My own favourite place for hunting is at the beach. Beach combing is such a relaxing activity and you never know what you might find. Searching for interesting shaped pieces of driftwood, pebbles with a hole through, particular types of shell or beautiful sea-smoothed bottle glass is my idea of a perfect holiday activity, plus you can use the things you find to create pictures on the sand.
When I was young our family used to go on holiday to the Scilly Isles. The island we stayed on was only a couple of miles long and much less wide, and had no traffic other than the occasional tractor. One of the highlights of our stay was when dad set up an island-wide treasure hunt, with a series of written clues to follow, and all the kids would set off on a mission to find the treasure. I remember one year it was a 50p for each of us in the zip pocket on Grampa's hat! My boys are a bit little for this kind of hunt just yet, but I hope I can find a safe place for them to enjoy the same kind of challenge when they're older- it gave us such happy memories.

Of course, if the weather continues to be this cold (please, please let it be for not too much longer!) our main source of hunting fun will have to be indoors hide-and-seek or sardines, tho how many more times I can pretend to be surprised to find Danny under our bed I'm not sure!