Treasure Hunt
Summer wouldn’t be complete for any kid without some kind of a treasure hunt. While visiting their Grandma Linda’s house this summer my kids had the treasure hunt of a lifetime! It involved battling evil giants, walking through tunnels of darkness and finding the remnants of an ancient king. Sound too hard to create? Think again. Linda shared her treasure hunt planning skills with me and now I’ll share them here at Nature For Kids! Let’s start with the map.
How To Make A Treasure Map: (that’s rad and looks pretty darn real)
Find a brown paper bag. Open it up into a rectangular shape. Tear the edges a little, then get it wet and crumple it up into a ball. Straighten the paper out and rub it lightly with a wet tea bag, a sponge with watered down brown paint or instant coffee. These first few steps will help it look OLD. Let it dry completely. Now *draw the map on it with permanent marker or fabric pens so it won’t run during the next step. After the map is drawn, very lightly rub the map with paper towels and a little dab of cooking or olive oil. The oil makes it more durable and sort of transparent. Blot the map between two fresh paper towels to get any excess oil out. All done!
*When drawing out the map consider replacing ordinary names with more mystical ones.
- Garden - Forbidden Garden
- Pasture - Valley of the Beasts
- Shed - Den of Darkness
- Lilac Bush - Witches Weeds
Before the treasure hunt began Linda gave everyone a bag to collect items along the way, a water bottle to stay hydrated and a sword to protect them from evil creatures. (see evil creatures below)
Evil Nanny Goats in the Valley of the Beasts!
Linda involved all the grandkids. One of the oldest, Brick, played the part of the giant. At 6′3″ he played the part nicely!
Linda created a skeleton out of styrofoam. One of their missions was to collect the bones in the land of desolation and put it together.
She also made a tunnel of darkness by putting tarp and blankets over the top of the clothesline.
After the conquering heroes had found their treasure they were awarded medals and crowns!
This treasure hunt will be remembered for years to come I’m sure! Now it’s your turn to create one. Morph this one to fit your location. Draw a map of the area. Change the names around a bit and make up a story line. Write out an instruction book and have the kids do certain things along the way (like collect items, fight monsters, etc.) The real treasure is the experience in my opinion! Send in your treasure hunt experience with some pictures. We’d love to hear about it here at Nature For Kids.
adventure, outdoors, treasure map, summer fun, kids, activities for children, activities for kids, treasure hunt
Fire Starter
No I’m sorry, despite what the title says, this is not a post about rekindling your relationship with your significant other. This post is about how to make fire starters for a campfire.
One of my pet peeves is having my kids standing around the fire pit monitoring my fire starting abilities. After about five minutes of me scrounging, layering and situating I hear the little voices saying, “how come it’s not starting”, “Dad’s always starts the first time”, “You’re not very good at this huh Mom”. Then their dad comes in chuckling, moves a couple sticks around, blows a little at the bottom of the sticks and viola’ we have a heater of a fire! It’s so infuriating!
So I thought it would be good for me to share my new found secret here at Nature For Kids, which I got from my mom-in-law, Linda. A fire starter is something you simply put at the base of your fire and light. It stays lit longer allowing the wood and kindling to catch fire completely.
Here’s how you make them…
You Will Need: Egg carton, utility scissors, birthday candles or wicks, large soup can, *paraffin wax, newspaper, large pot of water
*don’t be intimidated. You usually can get paraffin wax from your local Wal-mart. Any craft store should have it too. It’s useful in making inexpensive emergency candles also.
Begin heating pot of water on the stove on high heat. Take the egg carton and cut into individual pods, as seen in the picture. Set the pods out on newspaper. Have birthday candles or precut 2.5-inch wicks nearby. Place a brick of the wax inside a large soup can. Put the can inside the pot of hot water. (it will work like a double boiler system) Be sure it’s not too hot. You want to melt the wax slowly. Once the wax is melted pour into egg pods, careful not to overflow. Place a birthday candle or wick in center of wax. Let cool.
And there you have it. Just put your newly made fire starter at the base of your fire pit and watch that baby burn. This is a foolproof way to never be the brunt end of your children’s fire jokes!
Here are some other great fire starter options.
Don’t forget about the Nature For Kids logo sticker give away that’s going on. Just send in a picture of your flower child and be entered in the drawing!
outdoors, campfire, camping
