Backyard Treasure Hunt!

We needed an activity to do yesterday and so Clara got to pull her first popsicle stick out of the Summer Fun Ideas jar!  She was super excited.  I was super glad that she didn’t pull out any of the water play activities as it was really cold yesterday.  But, treasure hunt I could manage.

About a year ago (make that two years ago, according to my Shutterfly account), I took close up pictures of places in our yard, printed them out, and then promptly forgot about them.  I meant to do this treasure hunt earlier.  But, when Clara pulled out the stick, I was finally motivated.  I hid the pictures as the “clues” all around the yard, leading to the barbecue at the end where I had hidden a little snack (fruit snacks, which we NEVER have) as the “treasure.”

The pictures, since they were close ups, were just hard enough that they had to be figured out, but not so hard that they were impossible.  We had to prompt them a little bit to think, but by the third clue they were off and running on their own, pretty much.  The barbecue was actually the hardest clue for them to figure out since they are not usually allowed to touch the barbecue (for obvious reasons) and so its out of sight, out of mind.