Treasure Hunts

Everybody likes a mystery (well almost everybody! :-D) and treasure hunts are a great way to get children and youth engaged in an activity. A well planned hunt can help them learn various skills and/or facts all with the added incentive of solving the mystery/clues and a possible reward at the end!!

Christmas Treasure Hunt

This was a treasure hunt produced for our own youth group a few years ago requiring those taking part to look up facts about Christmas to solve the clues. The final answer is also unexpected! It's free for use and all the materials are provided here for downloading and printing. Click here for the Christmas Treasure Hunt

Scavenger Hunts

These often don't require too much preparation and you leave the players to do the thinking and finding. You may find these are easier to do where there is a large area and be aware that they require teams to bring back things they have found of their own initiative, so you might want to put limits on what they can bring back... eg anything bolted down or behind locked/closed doors :-)

Ingenuity

This one requires a little bit of forethought and preparation, but its the more common form of scavenger hunt. Create a list of things to find for each team before hand. These can be either specific items (some water) or more ambiguous, e.g. `something old, something, new, something borrowed, something blue’, etc. If you wish you can set a time limit and/or first team back with all the items or the most ingenious items wins.

"As simple as ABC…"

Split into teams. Leader selects a letter of the alphabet and sets a time limit. Players then have to collect or list as many things as possible beginning with the letter. Team finding the most wins.

Themed Treasure Hunts

The basic premise is to create a treasure hunt around a certain storyline and central theme.  They aren't going from clue to clue as much as they are trying free a kidnapped person, recover some secret government microfilm or discovering a lost Incan idol. The only disadvantage is that they require a certain amount of preparation and can't be done at the spur of a moment, but the preparation is worth it!