Snow Day! Picture Treasure Hunt!

Up for another Snow Day activity? My boys really loved this one... I think we might have to do it again sometime soon!

Picture Treasure Hunt

Treasure hunts are so fun! Following a map to each landmark, searching for treasure. Love it! Here is a little twist on the traditional treasure hunt... Use pictures for the clues! 


Materials

• camera
• printer
• paper
• pencil
• tape
• treasure
• lunch sack

The treasure can be anything you want - a treat, a toy, an activity... just something you have on hand that the kids will enjoy. I have a little prize box I use for those moments when I need something for the kids. We chose our treasures out of that box.

The first step is to give your child a camera, have them choose some locations around the house, and take pictures of those locations. I let my 8-year-old take care of this by himself. With the 4-year-old, I actually took the pictures for him. You can take the pictures any way you want. My son took a picture of a whole location (i.e. He took a picture of the microwave and stove). I took pictures really close up so that you could only see a small portion of the location, making it harder to tell what you were looking at. Both ways worked great, especially since he was taking pictures for the younger brother to decipher and I was taking pictures for him (the older brother) to decipher. He needed a bit of a challenge :) 

Next, print the pictures. They don't have to be printed very big. I dropped 8 pictures per page into Microsoft Word and they were the perfect size.

Once you have the pictures you can cut them out and place them in the order you want the treasure hunt to happen. We wrote down the names of the places in order on a piece of paper just in case we couldn't solve one of the clues. The boys didn't have any trouble figuring out the clues, but it was fantastic writing practice anyway!

Next, choose who is going to go first and have them place their clues around the house while the "treasure hunter" hides somewhere (like their bedroom). This is great for reasoning practice because they have to think about which picture to place in each location so that the "treasure hunter" can be lead to the next clue. The written list comes in handy at this stage! Once all of the clues are placed, hide the treasure in the final location. It is time for the treasure hunt to begin!

Give the "treasure hunter" the first picture clue. This will lead him/her to the next location where they can find the next picture clue. Hunting continues until they find the final location and the treasure! 

 

The boys had so much fun deciphering the pictures and trying to find the hidden clues. The hardest part for them was not giving away the answers to the clues, but they managed to stay *mostly* quiet and not give too many clues :) They were so excited to reach the end and find the treasure! Once we finished the first hunt and one child had his treasure the boys were both super excited to set up the second hunt and do it all over again!