AND THE TRAIN GOES....TREASURE HUNTING

I think it's fair to say that everyone loves a treasure hunt. I know my kids do and were asking to do one today but I've been sick much of this week. Nothing serious but it has put a dent in my enthusiasm for most things but then I remembered this and I thought I'd share.

I bought this book, And the Train Goes..., goes a few years ago because I loved the detailed and yet simply coloured illustrations. I love it now because it's both a great read aloud book and a book to enjoy just by yourself or with a friend. 

The text is well paced and rhythmic.  The words sound their way off each page (it's a great text for teaching onomatopoeia too).

But one of my most favourite parts of this book are the teapots and snails hidden on nearly every page.  A bit like the duck hiding in the Usborne Farmyard Tales books. 

  

Sometimes they are quite obvious and sometimes they are not.  Meanwhile, the different train carriages roll through the book until the station is left, empty and quiet save for the station parrot.

For a bit of fun following reading of this book at preschool last year, I had made ten snails and ten teapots and hidden them around the yard for the children to find. 

Today I dug them out of the cupboard and hid them around the house for the girls to find.   

 Some were easier to find than others so my youngest could be involved.

 

 But others were much harder to find...

  

Needless to say, they had lots of fun and then continued

to take turns hiding them from the other two (cue me lying down on the couch).

  

Toy hide and seek is another favourite around here.  It's my go to game when I still want to play with my youngest but also need to get other jobs done.  Either I or she can hide a selection of our stuffed toys for the other person to find.

I loved this link to a shape scavenger hunt shared by Karen Green over at Flights of Whimsy during the week too.

Here are some other ideas to try ~

• Hunt for different coloured objects - just use some different coloured paper and task the kids to find something of each colour to match or if you want to match shades try a Paint chip colour hunt from Inner Child Fun.

• Another shape hunt - this one from Rockabye Butterfly.

• Or for older children try a Sight Word Scavenger Hunt from Sugar Aunts or go searching for sight words in books.

• Bug hunts are great fun and can be shaped to suit the season/location easily enough by taking photos  beforehand and then printing the list out.  I've done this and also taken partial pictures of objects for location in Math, having children work out where they'd seen them using a map of the school yard.

•  Digging for things in the sandpit - dinosaurs, treasure will also entertain.   Once I frozen small dinosaurs in big ice cubes for a class of budding scientists to excavate and these I-spy jars were popular too.

Is hunting for things just as popular at your house? 

What standbys do you rely on when you are sick but the kids are all well?