Treasure hunt clues and hints for kids
Here you will find a complete list of all ideas of clues to create to organize a treasure hunt. The preparation of the events, of the riddles, and the challenges is probably the most delicate moment in the making of your scavenger hunt! Finding good ideas is not always easy; and you also have to adapt them to the age of your group of kids and format the sheets so that they correspond to the theme… With our games, you don’t have to worry about that, all you have to do is find hiding places and note them down on your follow-up sheet. If you want to make the games and riddles yourself, check out this list of ideas that you can use for your scavenger hunt. You will need to create and invent clues adapted to your scavenger hunt theme and follow a conductive thread! These challenges, riddles or events will give your game a rhythm. Kids will have to solve them one by one to finish their adventure! Discover all our riddles ideas to organize a treasure hunt for kids !
Check out all our treasure hunts, detective mysteries and escape room kits for kids to easily animate a birthday party.
1- The right questions before you start
Is your child asking you for a birthday treasure hunt? Below is a list of treasure clues to help you to create a home trasure hunt!
Indeed, it is an activity that is very popular with children. They will have to find the location of a treasure with the help of clues that you will provide them.
A treasure hunt requires preparation. There are several important things to think about before you start writing and preparing for the game:
- Do you want a treasure hunt, scavenger hunt, police investigation or escape game? What type of game are you going to play?
- Who is your scavenger hunt for? What type of audience will participate?
- Where will your scavenger hunt take place? Indoor, outdoor, house, garden, park…
- Theme of your treasure hunt
- Location of your hiding places
These are very important questions to think about in order to best prepare your activity on the theme of your choice and adapt it to your audience! But today, I’d like to talk to you about the riddles, the clues, that you can use in each new challenge and stage of the game to help the children move forward in their adventure. You have to think of a puzzle for each of your hiding places, so there will be as many puzzles as there are hiding places to choose from.
2- Rebus
Create a sentence with drawings. Each drawing interpreted by the child will give the sound of a syllable that will form a sentence once put together. You can set up this type of puzzle to make children guess a word or phrase. This will give them an extra clue to continue the adventure and find the location of the treasure or solve the mystery. Using the rebus, you can have the children guess a place, an object or even the location of the next clue.
3- Puzzles as clues for treasure hunt
Take a picture or make a drawing of what you want to make the children guess; they will have to recreate it; cut it up into pieces… the number of pieces of the puzzle will depend on the age of the children…
4- Charades
Kids of all ages can enjoy a fun game of charades. The child will have to make his team guess a word by making only gestures. He should not say a word.
5- Coded message: the best clues for treasure hunt
There are plenty of ways to make them: you can get inspired by lots of different games to make guess a coded word or number to a child.
You can use the Morse code for example; with help from the corresponding table, the kids can find a word…
Use phone keyboards that have letters and numbers. To make them find a numbered code, use the letters that correspond to a number that the kids must find.
You can simply replace letters with numbers or with a drawing in a table. Then you show only the numbers or the drawing and the child has to find the corresponding letter. For the younger ones, you can do this with colours… Let your imagination find something… There are many methods that you can adapt depending on the age of the children…
Discover our complete article dedicated to the creation of secret codes for children.
6- Mazes and paths to follow
These are no secret to anyone. Kids love to do these in game books. They develop their logic and observation skills. These games do not age and kids enjoy finding their way through mazes to finally solve the riddles.
7- Backwards sentence or mirror sentence
The kids will need to place the sentence in front of a mirror to read it. They’re easy to prepare: you just need to write your sentence in Word, copy it to PowerPoint, reverse it and then print it.
8- Riddles as clues for treasure hunt
These are enigmas with a short statement that the kids will need to find the answer to get the clue.
9- Dots to connect
This is a simple game and very entertaining for kids. The aim is to connect numbered dots in the right order to create a drawing. You can adjust the difficulty depending on the age of the kids: 15 dots will be enough for the smaller ones, around 50 for 6-7 year olds and as many as you want for 8 year olds and over. You know the kids best. The final drawing will be the solution for the enigma: you can make them guess an animal, a flower…
10- Spot the difference
Choose a drawing in relation to the theme of your birthday game or your enigma. Copy it and change 5-7 elements of the drawing. The kids will have to find the differences in between the 2 drawings to complete the task. This type of game demonstrates the kid’s observation skills to continue the adventure. You can prepare it easily on Photoshop or you can download ready-to-play versions on Internet.
11- The missing object
Select images on the theme of your game and paste them in a PowerPoint document. Then, duplicate the document but with a missing image… The kids will have to find which part is missing to complete the challenge!
12- Challenge games
They are motor games. Switching between logic games and motor games is crucial to have a good balance of activities: you can use all the popular games: relays, egg and spoon race, dart throwing, ball throwing in a bucket, races, agility games…
These are examples of games that you can use in your scavenger hunt. There are many more. These are just the main games ideas to spark your imagination. As always, think about adapting the difficulty of the events depending on the abilities and the age of your child.
13- Other important points for your treasure hunt clues
These are of course the most classic and most common treasure hunt puzzles, but they are always a source of success! Combine these puzzles with each other to lead and lead the children on their mission or investigation. At the end of their adventure, they will find the treasure, solve the mystery or complete their mission within the time limit for an escape game for example.
For more information and to organize your treasure hunt from A to Z, please visit our detailed guide: “How to make a treasure hunt”.
This explanatory and detailed file will guide you step by step in your organization and animation of your birthday whatever the type of activity you choose: treasure hunt, police investigation or escape game.
Finally, for those who don’t feel ready to start such a preparation, who don’t have a precise idea, or who simply lack of time, you will only need a few clicks to download one of our turnkey game kits! It will allow you to organize a great game in no time at all!
We also offer a wide range of games to download and print for free. Discover our website which lists all the game ideas for your birthday parties. Get a lot of great ideas!
