A few weeks ago, we were heading out to run some errands with my mom, my sister, and my nieces. Delaney is not a big fan of shopping, so I knew she might not be thrilled with our afternoon plans.
Wanting to be proactive, I grabbed a little notebook and starting jotting down things we might see during our shopping trip: a baby in a stroller, someone wearing high heels, a box, green skirt, a sale sign, Christmas decorations, a chandelier. I filled five pages, added a few boxes for check marks and a shopping scavenger hunt was ready!
This little notebook kept three girls completely entertained for a long afternoon of shopping – it was fantastic! Yes, they may have been staring at other shoppers looking for zebra print and gold necklaces, but they were having such fun. Squeals and giggles beat whining and flopping anytime!
If your little one isn’t reading yet, you could do something similar with little drawings, or just be a reading partner as needed. I’m sure we’ll be doing this type of shopping scavenger hunt again soon!
We’ve also been having fun with a deck of Scavenger Hunt Cards I made a while back. I made these cards so the girls could do hunts whenever the mood strikes – without having to wait for me to come up with a list.
The cards describe various attributes – things like color, texture, shape, etc. Here are a few of the ways we have played with them so far:
- Each person draws 4 cards and we race to see who can find their items first.
- We work as a team to get through the whole deck. Sometimes, we time ourselves and try to set a new family record.
- Spread all the cards out face down on the table. Each person takes one card, finds a matching item, then comes back to find a new card. Whoever has the most cards is the winner!
- Pick one card from the deck and see if everyone can find a different item that matches that card.
- Bring the cards in the car and use your imagination to think of an item for each card.
