A FOREST SCAVENGER HUNT!

Finding things for the littles to do for free in the Summer holidays has proved difficult. The Summer holidays have fallen at a time where money hasn't been great. With completing uniforms, buying baby's pram and putting down a deposit and booking flights to Disneyland Paris this month we've not been left with loads of disposable income really. That being said we obviously didn't want the kids to do nothing and with the weather being scorching up until a week ago it wasn't as easy to just head to the park as the walk was too much in the heat, as was sitting in the park with no shade. So, the woods seemed the best option as it's not far to walk from ours and it's lovely and shaded.

Just going to the woods is fun but it's nothing different or new, so that's when I decided to become a 'Pinterest Mum' and make a cute treasure hunt map and get the littles to find what was on the list.

Now, I NEVER sugarcoat parenting or our struggles and getting to the woods was a challenge, as was coming home. Iris was not willing to cooperate and hold our hand whilst walking which meant the journey there was super stressful and it was so bad on the way back we got the bus 3 stops! Oh, Iris.

Once we got into the woods the behaviour instantly changed and Iris joined in and found the items really, really well and really impressed us. We had a picnic when we first arrived and had a drink which was lovely and Lucas loved using the picnic hamper. I forgot we had one so it hadn't been used for a while. 

Once we started with the hunt, Lucas and Iris had a wicker basket to collect the collectable items in and they were given the maps i'd drawn the night before. I am no artist anymore, it's been a long time since I drew anything I was proud of but the kids don't mind. They both knew exactly what they needed to find on the list and Iris' favourite was a stick or the feather! She found the stick drawing very amusing! That clearly gives me Mum points! Lucas also found them easy to recognise and found them so well. It was really nice watching them find everything and the team work was also super duper cute. I just loved watching them help each other and listening to Iris say words we hadn't heard her say before.

This was a perfect afternoon task and if we didn't have the behaviour struggles it would have been the perfect afternoon too. That being said it was lovely nonetheless and i'm sure we'd all be lying if we said our days with children didn't come with hiccups - even if some of those days came with more.

This is something I want to do seasonally, change locations, change what they have to find based on season and even when we're on our travels we can bring one of these along. When we go to Disney I might do one for the airport journey to keep them occupied and then maybe even a small one in Disney for a bit of extra fun, although we probably wont need fillers like this there; although we are becoming residents.

This is a great idea for when you're travelling and something you could always draw before you go away and chuck in a suitcase and bring on your beach adventure. It's something that can be done and adapted to anywhere with not a lot of time. You could even make one online and print it if you're not that artsy too. No pressure then!

Enjoy hunting!!!