Rainy Day Treasure Hunt

It rained on Sunday. In mid-February, in Northern Michigan, it rained. Yuck. The kids were desperate to get outside so we actually started out on a walk, but ended up only going 1/4 mile or so due to the awful weather. A (my husband) put the kids down for their naps and read them Let's Find Treasure, a Bear in the Blue House board book in which Bear sets up a treasure hunt for everyone on a rainy day. It must have inspired him, because the next thing I knew he was going all over the house snapping pictures and making his own rainy day treasure hunt. When S and K got up, he told them a dragon stopped by our house while they were sleeping and left a surprise for them to find.

He handed S a photograph the light fixture we have hanging in the stairway.

On the back it said, "Way up high I light the way, up the stairs every day."

S ran up the stairs to the light, looked up and found another clue inside. Then, for the next 15 or 20 minutes we ran all over the house finding clue after clue trying to find the treasure. (Which, by the way, was nothing more than a basket with two dollar store stuffed bunnies and some leftover Valentine's Day candy inside.) I was amazed that S knew where most of the items were. I couldn't believe he had noticed little things like candle holders and light fixtures - things I would have never guessed a three-year-old would have known where they were.

Setting up the hunt was really easy. All my husband did was snap some pictures of things in the house (a light, a painting, the phone, a speaker, a cupboard, the viewmaster projector, a piggy bank, etc.) printed them out, wrote rhymes on the back, and then stashed a clue by each item. He kept one picture out as the starting place, and hid the treasure behind the last item. I think, all in all, it took him about an hour to get ready. He said the hardest part about it was coming up with the rhymes, but they could have easily been left out since our kids (3 and 20 months) focused on the pictures. With older kids you could even use rhymes or riddles instead of pictures. The kids had so much fun, I think the dragon is going to have to stop by again.