Scavenger Hunt at Home for Kids – Gorgous Tips and Ideas

A scavenger hunt at home for kids is a great program for a children’s birthday party or similar occasion. Find out what to look for when planning it here!

A scavenger hunt or treasure hunt is an ideal game for a children’s birthday party or other party with children. This is because all the children have a common goal, solve puzzles and tasks together and at the end they can expect a great reward, for example in the form of sweets.

Many people automatically associate a scavenger hunt with the outdoors, but a suitable area is not always available. And the weather and season don’t always allow it. The good news is: you can also make a scavenger hunt indoors just as exciting, varied and imaginative for children!

For children, imagination plays just as big a role as the real environment anyway. With a little decoration and the right ideas for clues and tasks, the scavenger hunt at home becomes the highlight of the children’s party. And a scavenger hunt at home has another unbeatable advantage: you can hide clues and objects without fear that the wind will blow them away or passers-by will take them.

How to Plan a Scavenger Hunt at Home for Kids

Before you start planning the scavenger hunt for kids and thinking about the tasks, you should ask yourself the following questions:

• How many kids are participating in the scavenger hunt?
• How old are the participating children?
• Which rooms do I open for the scavenger hunt and which are off limits?
• How long should the scavenger hunt last?
• What materials do I need to prepare?
• Who will help me?

To the last question: yes, theoretically you can organize a scavenger hunt at home on your own, but first of all it is a great relief if someone helps you (e.g. your partner, your best friend, older siblings of the birthday child etc.). Secondly you are usually more creative in two or three when thinking up the tasks and hiding places and thirdly – together it is simply much more fun! 🙂

Determine Area and Route

The first thing to decide is which rooms at home are suitable for the scavenger hunt, and which are not. Parents’ bedrooms and study rooms are classic taboo zones, but so are the rooms of older siblings, pantry rooms, etc. Rooms that are well suited for a scavenger hunt at home for kids are, for example, the living room, dining room, hallway, staircase, hobby cellar and, of course, the children’s room of the birthday child.

The kitchen, bathroom and guest toilet are also possible, but you should make sure that nothing is lying around that the children shouldn’t get their hands on. As a rule of thumb, you should clean up all the rooms that are part of the scavenger hunt area and put away anything that is breakable or shouldn’t be examined by the kids.

If the scavenger hunt is themed, you can also hang decorations to match.

Once the area has been determined, the next step is to plan the route. It is best to start with the starting point and the destination: Where should the scavenger hunt begin in the home and where does the big prize await the kids?

How many stops there are in between is, of course, entirely up to you. About 10 stations is a good number for an approximately 45-minute scavenger hunt for kids.

Important: The stations do not need to form a straight line in the area of the scavenger hunt, and the spaces do not necessarily have to be worked through one after the other. Usually it is more fun for the children if they have to crisscross the apartment.

Hiding Places and Tasks for Your Acvenger Hunt at Home for Kids

The simplest way to design a scavenger hunt is as follows: At the starting point, the children get their first clue or task. After they solve it, the clue leads them to the next station, where the second clue or task is hidden. And so it goes on and on.

It is best to write the tasks and clues on colorful pieces of paper, which you fold up and possibly decorate with a small bow or a glued-on gold coin, so that the children can clearly recognize them as clues. If the children are younger, the adults can read them aloud.

Both when choosing the hiding places and when thinking up the clues and tasks, you should of course take into account the age of the children. If most or all of them are still preschoolers, word and letter puzzles or tasks that require reading don’t make much sense, and the hiding places shouldn’t be too difficult either.

The older the children are, the trickier the tasks can be, because they shouldn’t be too easy either. After all, a real sense of achievement comes from mastering challenges. And if in doubt, the adults can always help the children along.

Suggestions for Riddles, Clues and Tasks

• Conundrums such as “What gets wet when drying?” (answer: “a towel”)
• The children have to look for an object that has certain properties, e.g. round, yellow, elastic (yellow flummi ball)
• An object in the room has to be guessed by yes/no questions
• Something has to be counted (e.g. flower pots in the room, pictures on the wall, sofa cushions, lamps etc.)
• Hint to a certain children’s book or fairy tale and in the matching (picture) book the next hint can be found
• Guessing spices by smell
• Find the fruit in a fruit bowl that does not grow in Germany (or in your country).
• Which object does not belong in this room? (e.g. toothpaste in the kitchen, ladle in the bathroom, salt shaker on the bedside table)
• The children have to find out something that can be found in a non-fiction book for children on the shelf
• Things you can see out the window (How many stories is the neighbor’s house? What’s blue in the yard? What’s on the roof across the street?)
• Questions about characters from radio plays, books, TV or movies that everyone knows (Bibi & Tina, Benjamin Blümchen, Disney characters, etc.)

Good Hiding Places in the Apartment for Your Scavenger Hunt at Home for Kids

• in a flower pot
• between the leaves of a houseplant
• on the key board
• on the toilet cistern
• on a hanging lamp
• in a particular children’s book on the shelf
• in a drawer
• in the oven
• in the refrigerator
• under the carpet
• under a sofa cushion
• in the sofa seat
• under the dining table
• under the pillow of the birthday child
• in a box of toys
• between cuddly toys
• in the birthday child’s closet

Good luck planning your scavenger hunt at home for kids!

By the way, you can also find a three-part guide for a scavenger hunt for adults on Abenteuer Freundschaft. In addition, you will find numerous ideas for activities with friends, activities with children or with your partner on our leisure portal.

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