A birthday scavenger hunt is a fun way to make your child feel special on their big day. So here are some tips for holding a birthday scavenger hunt and 9 Brilliant Birthday Scavenger Hunt Ideas Your Child Will Love:

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When I was between 8 and 12 years old I used to create a birthday hunt every year for my dad’s birthday. He had to follow clues around the house to find his present. I still remember the little bits of paper with the clues I had written out and little pictures I had drawn!

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Birthday Scavenger Hunt Ideas for Kids

A scavenger hunt is a fun activity any time of the year, and we’ve got lots and lots of ideas on Mykidstime for kids scavenger hunts. But a birthday scavenger hunt can be either a great way to give your child a bit of special crazy fun on their big day or it can also be the focus of their birthday party to make it extra fun for them and their friends.

What is a Scavenger Hunt?

The basic premise of a scavenger hunt is that you give the “hunters” a list of either things to find or things to do (or a combination of both!). Some scavenger hunts can also be more like treasure hunts where you have to follow clues or solve riddles to get to the thing you are hunting, and I’ve included a couple of examples of those too.

Here are 9 different ideas for birthday scavenger hunts. Some of them are suitable to adapt for birthday parties, others would be good for your child’s big day.

I hope you enjoy organising and hosting your hunt!

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#1. Things to Find Scavenger Hunt

This is a list of things that either the birthday child has to find or their friends have to find as a team together. If you are running a “things to find” hunt, then you’ll want them to bring back the items that are on their list. So you might give them a bag or a box to put them into as they go around the hunt.

Some fun ideas for this might be :

• Something tiny
• A fluffy thing
• Something pink
• An item you wear, and so on.

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#2. Things to Do Scavenger Hunt

This is a list of things that either the birthday child or their friends have to do as a team together. If you are running a “things to do” hunt, then you’ll want them to either do the thing in front of you or take a photo to prove they have completed it.

Some fun ideas for this might be:

• Get an autograph from someone in the neighbourhood
• Get all your team members into the smallest space possible
• Take a picture of the team in a reflection other than a mirror, etc.

#3. A Photo Scavenger Hunt

Make a list of things that the birthday child or teams of friends have to do and photograph. It’s a good idea to specify that all photos must have at least one member of the group in them if it’s a group hunt.

Things that you could ask them to photograph would be:

• a group hug
• a rainbow
• polka dots
• a statue (or someone being a statue)
• something red

Craftaholics Anonymous has a free printable photo scavenger hunt sheet if you want to save time.

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#4. Selfie Scavenger Hunt

This is just like the photo scavenger hunt, but obviously with selfies as the focus. So get teams to take photos of themselves with things. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Selfie with something colourful
• Take a selfie in front of a tree
• Selfie with something round

I liked this Selfie Scavenger Hunt list that I found on Pinterest.

#5. Clues To Find Your Birthday Presents

Just like the ones I used to hold as a child for my dad, this is where you create a set of clues for your child to find their birthday presents. You can make them as hard or easy as you like.

Here are some clues to give you an idea:

• Find the first clue where you can see your reflection
• The next clue can be found where shoes are kept neat and tidy
• Look next at places where you can find a book, and so on.

Here’s an Easter list of clues you could easily adapt to make for your birthday hunt with clues.

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#6. Riddle Clues Scavenger Hunt

If you want to get really fun with the scavenger hunt, then writing out little riddles that your child has to solve will add an extra puzzle-y layer of fun! So for example,

Open me up and take a peek,
inside you will find a frozen treat.

(Answer: Freezer)

or

The more I dry, the wetter I become

(Answer: Towel)

You might like this free rhyming riddle printable from Celebrate Every Day with Me and you’ll find a great list of Riddles for Scavenger Hunts on Kidactivities.net.

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#7. Scavenger Hunt Clues Using Pictures

If your child is younger and can’t read yet, you could create a Picture Scavenger Hunt where they have to follow the picture clues. If you aren’t good at drawing, then you could take pictures of the places you are going to hide your clues and print them off to hide for the next clue location.

This printable Picture Clues Scavenger Hunt is available from Hubpages.

#8. Scavenger Hunt Clues using Puzzles

You could do this two different ways. Either take a blank jigsaw puzzle and write on the overall clue of where their birthday present is hidden and then they have to solve the jigsaw to get the clue.

Or, you could create little rebus puzzles that your child has to solve to find the next location. So for example,

Apple – Ape + Ant = Plant

or

Coffee + Table with arrow pointing up = under the coffee table

#9. Scavenger Hunt With Secret Codes

For the ultimate scavenger hunt create a secret code using numbers in place of letters to create the code (eg. 1=a, 2=b, 3=c, etc.). Each clue has the coded version of where the next clue can be found, e.g. 2-1-20-8-18-15-15-13 = BATHROOM.

You would give your child the code key that they need to decipher the clues. Here’s the simple alphabet with numbers code.

You could also use Pigpen, which is another secret cipher code, here are the instructions for creating pigpen messages.

I hope this has given you lots of ideas for holding a birthday scavenger hunt for your child. Whichever one you pick, I hope you have lots of fun creating it, and they have lots of fun doing it!

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Have your say! Have you ever created a birthday scavenger hunt for your child? Leave a comment below and let us know – we’d love to hear from you!