Activity #567: Host a kid scavenger hunt

Argh! Shiver me timbers, Monday is Talk Like a Pirate Day, so I offer a thematic scavenger hunt for little kids.

Some folks might tell you that to be a pirate, all you need is an eye patch. Or a parrot. Or a peg leg. But in my house, all you really need is the head scarf (and please, don’t call it a ribbon!) Holden got this little outfit as part of a pirate-themed birthday party he attended. And luckily Milo got a matching ensemble.

When we want to indulge our inner pirate, we don’t need to go any further than the house because a scavenger hunt can be as easy as you want to make it.

My friend Sunny says that she and her then-four-year old could wile away the minutes with their indoor hunts:

I make a list of things around the house (mirror, refrigerator, etc.) and ask him to find these things, then he crosses them off the paper. I try to challenge him a little by saying, “where do you see your reflection?”, “what keeps the food cold?”. You get the picture. He loves to cross things out. We did this one day for about 1/2 hour.

If thinking of household items is not your specialty, I have a brief list for you to adapt (oh yeah, worth noting, these are things you FIND, not things you grab and put in a box) — make it longer or shorter based on what your kid can handle:

1. bathroom mirror (where do you see your reflection when you brush your teeth?)
2. refrigerator (what keeps our food cold?)
3. front door (where do we leave the house?)
4. kitchen sink (where do we wash the dishes?)

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I originally wrote this post for the Savvy Source blog and it appeared there when my big boy was only three. Awww. I share it with you now as an attempt to be on maternity leave from my mommy blog.