Family Scavenger Hunt- Writing, Reading, and Spelling FUN!

I’m honored to join several other bloggers today in a little FAMILY FUN Blog Hop. You can visit The Realistic Mama  to see all the family fun ideas being shared today. There’s also a BIG giveaway {scroll to the bottom of this post to enter for some fun prizes!}

Please note that this post contains affiliate links.

Now that my kids are getting a little older, board games and card games have become an every day activity we all enjoy. While we play the basic games, like Candy Land, UNO, and Chutes and Ladders, one of our kids’ favorites is Thinkfun’s Zingo! {Zingo Sight Words is another one we enjoy.} A couple of years ago, Thinkfun’s What’s Gnu? caught my eye. Just recently, I bought it as a surprise to add to our family game stash. I quickly wrapped it when it arrived so my kids wouldn’t see it.

 

A Family Scavenger Hunt

I told the kids that I had wrapped a special surprise for our family and they had to find a good place to hide it from daddy. They settled on the perfect spot, behind a chair in the corner.

Once it was hidden, I added that we should get daddy to go on a scavenger hunt to find the present when he arrived home from work. They were ALL on board with this idea…and so was I because I knew this was the PERFECT way to sneak in some writing.

First, we brainstormed places we wanted daddy to search and the clues that would need to be written. Although my 2 year old didn’t “write” for the scavenger hunt, the other kids did.  MBug (4 years old) was highly motivated to write her own clue, so I drew a few “magic lines” for her and she did it!

 

Later that afternoon, we hung the clues around the house, double-checking that it was all ready. Then the wait was on for daddy to arrive.

 

When he did, the entire clan followed him from room to room, reading the clues aloud together (a great way to SNEAK in reading), excited for him to find the next one. Of course, there was even more cheering when the gift was opened and the kids discovered we had another family game to play together.

 

After dinner, we played a few rounds of What’s Gnu? (a fantastic game that sneaks in spelling and reading!) The game is so easy to adapt for different levels, which made it perfect for the two oldest kids, hubby and I (MBug played as my “partner”) to play as a family.

 

Our Family Scavenger Hunt was definitely a FUN activity that involved the entire family. And it was the perfect way to sneak in some literacy in a meaningful way, an added bonus in my book!

 

More Ideas for Making Literacy Fun:

• 50 Hands-On Spelling Activities
• 26 Ways to Learn the ABC’s: from A to Z!
• Roll and Write Silly Sentences
• 5 Days of Multi-Sensory Activities for Teaching Reading

 

~Becky

 

Be sure to visit The Realistic Mama for the other family fun ideas! Click HERE or on the image below.