The Scavenger Hunt

We decided long ago that we would incorporate scavenger hunts into our children's life as a way of gifting. Our methods will evolve as Eko ages, but while he's young we've decided to lay trails for him to follow, at the end of which could be found a special present. For his first hunt, we thought we'd put Eko's trail marker following skills to the test.

One day last February, while Eko was napping, daddy cut red construction paper into rectangular trail markers and laid a path of them sticking up in the snow all the way up to and past our horse barn. At the end of the trail we left a shiny red bag with a surprise inside.

Eko had so much fun spotting the next marker from the last. He was too little to grasp the idea that leaving the markers in the snow allowed him to follow them back down again, so each time he pulled one out and handed it to us we returned it to the snow once he began heading toward the next blaze.

When he spied the shiny red bag, Eko exclaimed, "Mommy, look, a BIG one!" thinking it was just an oversized trail marker. And inside the bag he found a toy saxophone. He was psyched.

His second hunt took place in May, after our friend Dave cut down a dozen trees on our property. Eko was fascinated by Dave's chainsaw and would often pretend little pieces of wood were his own chainsaw. Using tree marking tape, we laid a trail for him to follow though our lower woods, at the end of which he found a toy Husquavarna chainsaw stuck in a tree stump (a la Excalibur!). Even Oma and Gramdpa got to see Eko's excitement at the end of the hunt.

Eko doesn't have to set out on an adventure every time we buy him something—we've also set-up his 5-piece drum set in the night for him to discover in the morning, to huge WOWs! and lots of delighted noise! Most new toys are given one at a time to allow him to really focus on them individually, which suits his personality well. But we're seeing that the activity combined with the acquisition of a new toy fosters a relationship with the object he may not have otherwise developed. He seems to remember the experience of receiving more than when we just give him new things. He also loves making things so much that we try to include him in the making of new toys, like mixing up playdough and sewing up his giant Totoro pillow (but those are toys for another post!).


Scavenger hunts are such a fun way to discover a new treasure—the experience is as much fun (and sometimes more fun) than the discovery at the end. It's a great way to experience anticipation and creative problem solving. We're really looking forward to making the hunts more complex as he learns to read and work out riddles!