Extended Easter Egg hunt at home for pre-teens

[MonaChopsis]

I'm vaguely considering making a multi-day puzzle solving type Easter Egg hunt for DD (10). I have a few small 'Malteaster' type treats so was thinking I could entertain her for an hour or so a day if I put some thought into it!!

I'm thinking along the lines of crosswords she has to solve to get the location of the next clue etc.

Would anyone else be up for this?? It will be a lot easier if I have someone else contributing bright ideas as well!!

I do clues each year for my dc.
We've varied between having to solve code, mathematical puzzles, an estate wide hunt (things like take the second turning on your right, and you need the second letter on the street sign), unusual pictures (like under the bed) It's hard to find something new each year, but I normally manage something that takes 2-3 hours or so.

I bought an escape room kit when we went into lockdown so I’ve decided to use the locking strap to hold the eggs hostage and then they have to do the puzzles in order to get the NBC idea to unlock them!

@BrieAndChilli an EGGscape room perhaps?

I want to do this, this year.

My parents always did it for me, but my children have always had a egg hunt at church which I couldn't compete with (so didn't try!)
This year however it will have to be all me.

Yes DD normally has an Easter Egg hunt at home with riddles/clues with an answer that leads her to the next clue, eg "I'm very cold but I never wear a coat", next clue was in the freezer etc. There is normally around 7-8 clues and then the egg is hidden in the last clue.

I'm considering something a little trickier. Something over multiple days with a small Malteaster bunny as an 'interim' prize. I definitely think I'll do a cross word one day, and I am happy to post it here once it's done if people want inspiration, but am looking for other ideas for the other days!!

Witchend what kinds of codes and maths puzzles have you used??

There’s lots of ideas online, I downloaded a brilliant one last year (Can she find it again??!)

For example one yesr there were 26 clues to find, all had a number answer. They varied from algebra to things like "how many sides has an octagon"
When they had found all the clues they were told which clue matched which letter, so they had a = 8, b=21 etc.
They then had 8 clues each using that code taking them round the house until they found their egg.

Our egg hunts are always tricky for the person hunting (everyone does it in turn): they can't see anything, because they're blindfolded. They have to find their eggs in one of the following ways:

• follow a trail of small eggs leading to the big egg;
• follow a string around the garden, leading to each egg;
• a noisy device such as an iPod playing music is hidden with the big egg, so you have to follow the sound;
• being guided by someone else.

With the noisy big egg, we've also had a version where the Easter Bunny (me!) can move the egg, so they have to keep following the sound.

We've also done a game where you have to steal the eggs from the Easter Bunny, similar to "Keeper of the Keys". The Easter Bunny is blindfolded, guarding some eggs in front of him or her. People try to sneak up and grab eggs, without being heard and pointed at by the Bunny.

I have mentioned this before but for my teens, I do song lyrics, for example, "Cause you are the reason, I'm loosing my please come back now"

The missing word is Sleep from the song you are reason by Callum Scott.

So I would hide the next clue in teens bed.

I do about 10 clues each based on the music they listen too and some of their favourite songs.

I also have done a couple of book related ones. First one was using a quick to read books, first clue would be something like Page 2, line 6, word 8 and that would be where the next clue was and I would throw in a random question like what colour jumper was person in book wearing in chapter 6.
This had the bonus of teen actually reading a book.

I then did book titles written as anagrams, page number, line and word (same as above).

This year I have not done any so far so I really must get thinking and make it a bit harder/longer.

Sorry realised I should of said for my pre teen and teens I have done the above.

You could also do a nursery rhyme one for even younger children too.

Not sure if anyone is still reading this but I have just done another one I hadn't done before.

I have a few plastic eggs and an unused lego city set, I will be putting bits of the lego set in each egg and once they have built the lego set, they get their chocolate egg but they have to find the eggs hidden around the house/garden.

Just in case anyone is searching for inspiration!! For tomorrow's hunt I created a relatively easy crossword for DD, but once she finishes it she will be given a clue to decode... Coloured boxes which go on top of the crossword answers, and if you unscramble each colour you get a five word sentence.

First clue tells her to do a particular job for the next clue, the second asks her 'what is under your heart'. She has a heart shaped pillow in her bedroom, which has been buried under a load of other toys for a while, so I'm hoping that clue is lateral enough to make her work to figure it out!! I've popped a small Malteaster bunny under it as the reward. Hoping it will be incentive to finish her outstanding job as well as a puzzle to figure out what the coloured squares mean as a clue!!

This sounds great! Please share so I can plagiarise!

Thanks @MonaChopsis that is great!! I am going to plagiarise too if you don’t mind!

There are some great ideas here! I was thinking of a treasure hunt / following clues sort of thing as well, but I like the crossword too. Thanks for the inspiration

Some great inspiration on here thank you, just what I was looking for. Have now planned a crossword for DS12 and a wordsearch with a key for DD9 to kick off the first clue location then clues around the garden with each small bag of choc

It’s Easter today, so you might be lucky -
Look where you keep your rubber ducky.

🛁

And the next clue is in the bath - all round the house!

I think I left them in the washing machine last year, can’t remember what the clue was now. Something about going round and round I expect!

Watch out! It might be muddy or smelly
The next clue’s hiding in your ........

Thanks, all, and yes feel free to plagiarise all you like. Today I took inspiration from a previous poster and did a ' Fill in the missing word... Disney song edition' for DD. She loved it, much more fun than the crossword apparently!

Clues (and answers) were:
I know it's a lot: the , the bod (hair, in her haircare box)
I've been staring at the edge of the (water, wrapped around a tap)
Let's go fly a ! (kite, hanging over the kite packet in the garage)
Finally they're opening up the (gate, wrapped around one of the garden gate bars)
A spoonful of helps the medicine go down! (sugar, in the pantry)
knows best, listen to your (mother 😁 next clue was in my pocket )
Tale as old as , song as old as rhyme (time, by a clock)

There were others I could have used but she hasn't seen all the Disney films!! So I didn't use ones she would never have heard of. She had lots of fun and has been singing ever since!

Oh! Forgot the last one, which is where the malteasers were:

Once a day don't you want to throw the _ in? (towel, in the warming cupboard with the laundry!)