Make a treasure map to help fill your kids’ days, half term’s here and you need some fun (and cost-free) adventures. Combine a couple of ideas that are surefire winners in any kid’s imagination to send them off to fill some time. here’s how we did it.
The garden only offered limited pirate treasure potential (it’s been explored to death) so ActiveDad managed to wangle a bit of time in the park thinking up clues. Each clue was printed on a separate sheet of paper so once the tiny treasure hunters had solved a clue, they were handed the next one.
Write some clues
To begin with, take a quick walk through the park. See who the bench is dedicated to, check out the colour of the railings behind the cricket pavilion, how many steps are there up to the slide?
Go on a scavenger hunt with your kids
Once you have a set of questions, head home and fire up Microsoft Word 2010.
Use Word 2010 to add the pirate magic
Create a new document and you can go wild with the images:
Clipart pirate images can be inserted directly into Microsoft Word 2010 or you could use Bing to search for pirate images to make your map more exciting.
Don’t forget to wrote it in pirate! If you don’t have the knack, use one of the online Pirate translators, here’s one of the paragraphs from this guide translated at talklikeapirateday.com:
Arrr, t’ begin with, take a quick walk through the park. See who the bench is dedicated to, check out the colour o’ the railin’s behind the cricket pa’ilion, how many steps be thar up t’ the slide? Ye’ll ne’er get me buried booty!
Once you’ve got the clues written out, images inserted and the whole kaboodle printed off. You will need to head off to the park but remember to have some treasure ready for the end of the day. If your kids are the right age, you should also be able to get piratical (what a great word!) with the face paints and costumes. Today is a day for eye patches, kneckerchiefs, painted on stubble and an excuse to dig out your swords.
<quick play with the translator>
Aye, now go t’ the park and look for the treasure, argh!