A Treasure Hunt for Little Kids Inspired by The City of Ember…

Need Some Ideas to Run a Treasure Hunt?

Discover How to Organise a Treasure Hunt for Little Kids Inspired by the movie “City of Ember”.

Below you’ll see a stage by stage outline of how I organised an treasure hunt activity for 5 family kids. I had fun arranging it together beforehand with my son, aged 5. I love organising treasure hunts for the kids, it is great fun to do, and there is always a new idea to try out.

Use the ideas to inspire you to create one of your own, or use these ideas if you like them. For more kids they could be in small groups or teams, or as a relay treasure hunt perhaps, with each child in charge of a separate clue. This is a simple one where each child gets a ‘map’ with each of the clues written on the one piece of paper, with a chocolate or similar at each location. Fun! Each child has an adult helper to help then read and decipher their clues…

The inspiration for this party’s treasure hunt was the movie “The City of Ember”. Hence the final product is a message attached to a rock. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll remember the part where the children drop a rock with a message down to the boy’s father deep underground in the City of Ember, far below the surface of the Earth…

We created maps, drawn by my son, on paper that was aged with coffee and tea and salt dropped on the wet paper to leave swirls and interesting patterns. Sprinkling salt and letting the sun or a warm oven to dry it leave interesting blooms on the paper, so it looks quite aged. My son then added each child’s name and drew a map for them ( a decoration really).

For each child I planned a series of clues for them to follow with a ‘tall helper’, with lollies at each place, leading to a final treasure of golden chocolate coins and other lollies.

Each set of directions and clues was different, here are a few in more close up view:

I went over to Mum and Dad’s the week before and made a list of locations where lollies could be hidden for the planning part.

The map was then folded up and attached to a rock with a piece of rag ( a torn up old sheet)

Over at Grandma and Grandad’s house we dropped the message rocks off their balcony onto the grass below, they had to run down and get theirs and bring it back up to start hunting!

I seem to remember there was a bit of treasure at the site of each clue, then something more at the site of the final clue. I hope you get some new ideas to put into action for your next treasure hunt from this fun activity! Does this idea give you any sparks that you might include in your next kids party?

See also: Planning an Easter Treasure Hunt for Little Kids…

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