Treasure hunts with written clues are best when they provide the just right level of challenge for the participant. This will be a mixture of how the clues are written and how well-hidden each clue is. This hunt has written clues ready to use. They should work in most households and I’ve included some notes at the bottom of the page on where each clue should be hidden and possible ways to adapt the hunt to suit your house and the ability of the treasure hunters.

This hunt is fairly easy. It’s best suited to children who can read for themselves but can’t yet reason out complicated clues. If this seems a bit too easy for your treasure hunters, consider hiding the clues in difficult places (see below for tips on this) or try a harder treasure hunt. If your treasure hunters are not yet confident readers, you could either help them work out what the clue says, or try a treasure hunt with picture clues.

Stuff Needed:

• A copy of the clues – click here to download as PDF – (print out and cut into separate sheets or write them out if you don’t have access to a printer).
• Treasure (anything works as treasure. The joy of treasure hunting is in the hunt, more than the actual treasure. A special snack or small present work well but if you don’t have anything, make an activity of drawing or making treasure before the hunt)!
• (Optional) Blu-tack© or tape to stick clues in harder-to-see places.

Tips on Hiding Clues

One way to ensure your treasure hunt provides the right level of challenge for your treasure hunters is to consider carefully how easy or hard each clue will be to find, once the clue is solved. Don’t underestimate young treasure hunters, they can be incredibly good at finding things! A couple of points to consider are:

• How high can the shortest person reach?
• If there are a lot of something in the house (e.g. pillows), your house may end up ransacked in the hunt for treasure. Consider making these clues quite easy to find (under a pillow, not inside the case, for example). You could also add a hint onto a clue that has a lot of possible hiding places to narrow the search.
• Conversely, if you think the clues are quite easy for your searchers, hide the items really well (completely out of sight) so the searchers have to hunt hard to find them. Blu-tack© or tape can really help with this (e.g. to stick a clue to the underside of a table).
• Be careful to avoid making the daft mistake of hiding the clues in the place that that clue describes! See below for instructions specific to this hunt.

Where to Hide the Clues

1. Keep this clue to give to the treasure hunters.
2. Hide this clue either on the fridge door with a magnet (easy) or inside the fridge door (door is in the clue so it must be in the door part).
3. Hide this clue in or under a shoe. If there’s a place in your house where shoes normally live (e.g. by the front door), choose a shoe that’s in the right place.
4. Hide this clue under a pillow. If you hide it in the child’s bedroom (rather than yours) you are less likely to have your room destroyed!
5. Hide this on or under a lamp, ideally a bedside lamp. If your child has a torch they sometimes use to read, this could work too. If there are no suitable lamps, the light switch in their bedroom would work.
6. Hide this on a table. Consider sticking the clue to the underside of the table to make it harder to find.
7. Hide this clue on a window.
8. Hide this clue in a story book (ideally one with pictures). As there are probably a lot of books in the house, decide how hard you want to make it to find the right book!
9. Hide this clue on the washing machine.
10.  I have purposefully kept the final clue a little vague. Hide the treasure in a bath, shower or sink (or anywhere else in the house that fits the clue). Think carefully about where to put it so it’s unlikely to be found before the clues have led there (for example, pull the shower curtain across slightly or put in the kitchen sink in a saucepan with a lid). If you have a window in your bathroom, it’s possible the hunters will have gone looking in there following clue number 6.

Good luck! If you have any feedback on this, or other treasure hunts you’ve tried on the site, I’d love to hear it. It’s always a challenge writing clues to suit many locations and abilities of searcher so I welcome feedback which can help me to improve my clues. I am always happy to answer questions if you’re confused about how to use or set up an activity from the site. Please use the form on the contact page.