3 Captivating Egg Hunts

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Family

March 21, 2018

One of my most cherished childhood memories has to be the different treasure hunts my dad would put together for me and my sister. Egg hunts were particularly special, mostly because we would “earn” chocolate through deduction… and a lot of running around the house.

I wanted to share these happy memories with my own children, so for the past 4 or 5 springs, to our little girls’ delight, my partner and I have racked our brains to come up with more challenging hunts every year.

Riddle hunt – Younger children

This traditional hunt is easy enough for your younger kids. It’s quite simple: have your children guess where each chocolate is hidden. And for you moms and dads who are a little last minute, here is a list of hints that range in difficulty to give you ideas, to which you can choose to add your own:

*Clue*	*Place where the egg is hidden*
Brr! It’s cold here!	In the fridge
My pyjama sleeps here	Under your child’s pillow
I have to cover my little toes!	Where your child’s socks are
It’s hard to put all the pieces together!	In a puzzle box
This allows me to see grandpa (or grandma) every day!	Next to a picture of grandpa or grandma
Scrub your hands to make sure they are clean!	Behind the soap you keep close to the sink
Mom loves to put some colours on her nails	Where mom keeps her nail polish—if they know where she does!
There are so many colours here!	Where you keep all the colouring pencils
We love them when we get out of the pool	Where you keep the beach towels
This place has everything you need to build something	This can refer to Lego-style building blocks or to toy tools
Start me and I will spin and melt your chocolate	You choose: microwave of drying machine!
Clue about your child’s favorite book	Shelf where you keep this book

Egg hunt map – 7 years or older

The year we came up with this hunt, my daughters put their spatial and map-reading skills to good use. We presented them with 3 hand-drawn maps: one of the basement, one of the first floor, and another one of the second floor. Every wall was there, and although they might not have been exactly to scale, the proportions were close enough to reality that they could tell which room was which. To help them find their way, we added some markers: the fridge, the kitchen table, the beds, the couch, etc.

Smiley faces drawn on the plans would indicate the different places where they could find chocolate. The kids ran around the house, turning their maps upside down and right side up again to find all the sweets we hid for them!

Harry Potter themed hunt – Children aged 6 to 10

This time last year, our family was reading the Harry Potter series, so we decided to organize our hunt around this theme. To make it a little more challenging, each hint consisted in a series of numbers that could be decoded using the logic A=1, B=2, C=3 and so on. Then, the words they found, which of course were all related to our theme, were hints to where in the house their next egg and hint were hidden. Here are a few examples:

Code	Clue	Place where the egg is hidden
17-21-9-4-4-9-20-3-8	QUIDDITCH	Closet where the broom is kept
19-15-18-20-9-14-7-8-1-20	SORTING HAT	Closet where you keep the hats
8-5-18-13-9-15-14-5	HERMIONE	Where does Hermione spend most of her time? In the library, where all the books are!
23-1-14-4	WAND	Can refer to the place where you keep your sushi sticks or drum sticks, for example
4-18-1-7-15-14-19	DRAGON	This one is perfect if your child has a stuffed dragon in his or her room
9-14-22-9-19-9-2-12-5	INVISIBLE	As in Harry’s invisibility cloak. At home, cloaks and capes are kept with all the other costumes!
6-12-15-15-16-15-23-4-5-18	FLOO POWDER	This powder is used to travel through a network of fireplaces, so hide an egg next to yours!
16-15-18-18-9-4-7-5	PORRIDGE	This is how the British call oatmeal, so head for the pantry!
23-15-18-13-20-1-9-12	WORMTAIL	In the story, Wormtail is a rat… but the closest thing we have to a rat is our Ratatouille DVD!
7-18-9-14-7-15-20-20-19	GRINGOTTS	Gringotts is a bank, so look for the piggy banks around your house
8-15-23-12-5-18	HOWLER	The kind of letter that scolds you! Head for the mailbox!

Seeing how enthusiastic my kids are when doing these hunts, I certainly don’t regret keeping my father’s tradition alive. These new memories are a great continuity to my childhood memories; I hope yours are as great! Enjoy!