Monday, August 8, 2011

The Back to School Treasure Hunt

Our first day of school began with our annual Treasure Hunt.  I am not sure when we first began this tradition, but this was probably our 8th or 9th one.  I prefer to have this treasure hunt on the the day before we start school, but this year I just did not have an opportunity to do that.
In years past I have used many different things as the "treasure":  school supplies, lunch bags (one of the years we co-opped), fancy pencils, gift cards to the book store, and this year, a "coupon" for a smoothie from Smoothie King.

Some years I have made clues for each child separately, and some years they just all take turns reading the clues and working together to find the next one.  That is what we did this year.

 the clues
I gave them Clue #1 out on the front porch.

 Clue #2

 Clue #3

 Clue #4 was inside here

 Clue #4

 Clue #5

 Clue #6

 Clue #7

 Clue #8

 Clue #9

 Clue #10

 The Prize!!

 "Let's go to Smoothie King right now!" they all cried.

So we did!

And we did not begin our first day of school until 10:00!


 Here they all are, waiting for the first clue.

 Looking for a clue

 reading a clue

 showing me a snake skin!

 Sam with the last clue

 Sam, "reading" the last clue

 Here they are at Smoothie King.

 Sam while waiting for his smoothie

Yum!  Yum!

It was a great way to begin the new school year!

8 comments:

  1. It made me smile that you went ahead to Smoothie King and made fun memories together in spite of how late you might be finishing your day's lessons. It's a blessing to spend our days with our children!

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  2. So fun!!! What a great first day!! :)

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  3. What a wonderful way to start the year! I think I may start this tradition with Hope. I have been trying to think of a way to make the year special and I think this may be it.

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  4. Everything about this post made me smile...except for that awful snake skin! Yuck! I'll probably have nightmares now. Ha!

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  5. I popped over from Lecia's blog...what fun ideas you have. Love the treasure hunt. Think I'll have to try that one out~

    ~Cinnamon

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  6. This is such a fun idea! What a GREAT tradition - I think we may start this too =-) I shared it with my Facebook readers here: https://www.facebook.com/LivingLifeIntentionally

    Beth

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  7. This is a great idea! We're so doing this! Thanks!

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  8. I love the idea of starting the school year on such a positive note! Thank you for sharing your idea, I will certainly do this with my daughters this year.

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