The girls have requested a scavenger style treasure hunt this Easter so I’ve been thinking up some clues to plant around the house, to go on the clue sheets I designed & popped on here as a free printable yesterday.
Why not combine these clue ideas with my free printable clues & Easter baskets?
Here are a variety of different clue ideas suitable for children of all ages – many of them you can make as difficult or easy as you like.
Anagrams
Simple anagrams are a simple clue and you can make them suit the treasure hunters. A couple of simple ones for children are:
foas = sofa
kins = sink
Mirror clues
Hold them up in a mirror to read them – I might make one of these and provide a small mirror along with the clue in one of the baskets for this. You could give them a clue to work it out, too – such as “reflect on this”
Picture / jigsaw clues
Take a photo of the next hiding place, cut it up and include the pieces in the envelope. You could also draw a little treasure map and cut that up for this idea.
Maths
Make up some sums that suit the level of the hunters, and give them a letter for each answer – can you tell out where this clue is pointing?
Straightforward questions
These are good for the younger treasure hunters out there:
“Where do the vegetables live?”
“Where does your doll sleep?”
Emoji pictogram clues
Use a few emojis to point them to the next hiding place:
Fill in the blanks
Take out a few letters (or the vowels) from the next location:
Secret code
Include a key with an encrypted message. You could use symbols, morse code, or a straight forward a=1, b=2 type cipher.
UV / Invisible writing
The girls have one of those spy pens that you can write using invisible ink and then use the UV light on the cap to read it. Write a clue and add a hint about how to read it.
Hidden letters
If you have a series of books or films you could list the names of some of the titles. Inside each book / film case hide a different letter so that they have to search inside them all to find the next clue. For example you could list seven different Mr Men books, and hide a letter in each to spell out the word freezer.
Quotes
Include a memorable line from a book that the hunters should recognise, and hide the next clue inside the book, e.g.:
“Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”
This leads to the book ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ which any fan of the books would be able to tell. Just make sure you pick a book your hunters are familiar with. For kids, this might be a picture book like the Gruffalo.
Close up photos
Take a close up photo of the hiding place – like the handle of a drawer.
Maze
Generate a clue maze at Festisite – this one spells out knives and forks :
Capital letters
Write a sentence and hide the clue within it:
thE quick browN Fox jumPS ovEr The Lazy dog
E N F P S E T L unscrambles to spell FELT PENS
You can make it easier by making sure the letters are in the right order in your sentence, and don’t need unscrambling.
Item hunt
List a number of items the hunters need to collect and bring to someone in exchange for being given a clue.
First letters
Use pictures to spell out a location with their first letters:
Find the word in the book
Give the name of a book and the page, paragraph and word they need, for example this clue:
Sky the Unwanted Kitten
Page 34
Paragraph 3
Word 18
Leads to the word “bowl”
Remove the extra letters
Add extra letters to a word to obscure your clue, then give them a hint that they need to cross out that letter:
xxxlxxexxgxxoxx xxmxxxixxxnxxxxixxfxxxixxgxxxsxxx
Riddles
There are loads of riddles you can use to describe everyday items in the house, here are some great lists to give you some ideas:
10 indoor scavenger hunt clues
There you go – plenty of ideas for you to make up your own scavenger hunts! I’ll be using some of these this weekend.
