treasure hunt at party for 5 year old

[robinblue]

hi there,
Just looking for some advice for my son's upcoming 5th birthday party. Having a party at home for him and I was wondering about doing a treasure hunt in the garden and what the best way to do it would be. Basically, I'm wondering whether it's a recipe for disaster if I let six 4/5-year-olds scramble around looking for gold coins or whatever and one person finds very little or nothing. It might all end in tears. I have some cardboard pirate coasters from a previous party. I was thinking I could hide those, they find them as a team and put them in a box or something, then they all get a prize. They are probably too young for a map (although my son loves looking knowledgeably at maps!) or for following written clues that were read out to them, what do you think? I also saw a paper treasure hunt set with pictures and clues which might be easy for them to follow. I'd love to hear opinions on what other people have done for this age group.
thanks a mill!

[littleoaktree]

The way I did it for ds1's 4th birthday was to draw individual treasure maps for them which had pictures to indicate what the next stage was and but at each stage rather than there being a 'clue' which I thought was too difficult I had an activity they had to complete/something to find - eg they had to walk the plank at one, find a 'treasure' in a box of sand at another. Then when each of them had done the activity I talked them through finding the next stage by making up a rhyme about the next picture on the map. We had a piñata at the end with all the treasure in so they 'found it' all together. It worked fine as they all found/did things along the way but none of them got left behind/found all the treasure etc.

I've also seen it done where the parent reads out a clue and then all the children run and find the answer to that and then there's a small treasure there and they come back and have another clue etc.

[partyprincesz]

Purchase a small gift for each child and wrap each gift in different colored or themed wrapping paper. Hide the gifts. Then, give each child a small sample of the unique paper his/her gift is wrapped in. Instruct the children to find their gift wrapped in the matching paper.
kids birthday party characters

[robinblue]

hi all, thanks for your advice. Had the party on sat and in the end I hid 10 paper pirate coasters in the garden (there were 10 kids). They each had to find one and then line up. Then I had a black plastic box with a skull stuck on the outside which was the treasure chest. I filled this with shredder paper and they took it in turns to 'dig' for their treasure in it, which was a kinder surprise each. It went down well and the kinder surprises were very popular.