Pirates Treasure Hunt
by Chris K.
(League City, TX)
Make a treasure map suitable for the age of the children. For my grandson's (4th) birthday party I made a treasure map for 3 teams. An adult leads the way for each of the teams. They started at the front door but all three teams had different instructions so not to have all teams at each location at once.
Some went left, some went right and some went straight ahead for their next location clues.
I got play sand (Toys R Us) and poured some in a mound in the grass on the side of the yard. I bought little boats (Dollar Store bath toys) and had them upside down and turned sideways like shipwrecked boats and made a flag from poster board that said "Shipwrecked Island." Attached to the flag was the next clue.
The next clue read, "proceed to yer left on the next twenty rocks, careful not to slip as ye may find a croc" (I actually had 20 stepping stones on the side of my yard so this is where we pretended that crocs were in the water and they couldn't step off each stone).
The next location was Croc Rock. I got an inflatable crocodile and some small alligator toys (Dollar Store) and placed them on a landscape stone. Under the croc was the next clue. Again, I made a poster board flag that said, "CROC ROCK." Each of the other teams had similar clues, just for the location opposite of the other teams, so they all got the same clues that would lead them to the "BOOTY".
Make sure you make 3 clues for each location or for however many teams you have hunting.
The last clue read, "If you be a pirate walk if you dare, but if ye a chicken, ye best beware". Also, it said to take 20 steps to their left (I have a big yard) which led them to a kiddie pool filled with pirate rubber duckies. It had a poster board flag that read, WALK THE PLANK. Each child had to walk across a plywood plank propped up on each side on cinder blocks (an adult would hold the hands to guarantee a DRY arrival). Once they walked the plank, each child got to pull one duck out of the pool. They had numbers on them from 1-3. There were 3 TREASURE gifts they could get. 1's got a pirate telescope, 2's got a pirate chest with candy in it (cardboard treasure chests from any party store) and 3's got a pirate pen and pad set.
You can choose anything you want to fit your budget. It doesn't have to be big, kids like anything new to them. For 3-5 year olds, this was exciting to them, the older the child, the bigger your imagination will have to become.
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