Scavanger Hunts

Get your youth to dress up as tourists and take them into the city with a list of silly things that they have to get while pretending to be tourists. They have to speak with an accent for the whole night from whatever country they choose to be from. The first thing on the list was a disposable camera, so they were all given money to get the camera, then they had to take photos of them in certain tourist locations, with a bus driver, silly things like that, and collect things like a blue straw, the signature of someone who works at Subway, etc.

This is a great event to bring as many church’s youth groups in a town together as possible.

Basic rules:
1)Up to 4 kids on a team.
2)Jr. and Sr. high are separate
3)$10 dollar entrance fee per team ($5 to prize pot, $5 to cost)
4)All laws must be followed (no stealing, speeding, etc…)
5)Sr. high may use vehicles driven by a team member or parent only.
6)Jr. high may use non-motorized transportation only.
7)Team members must stay together at all times.
8)All items must be in and counted before the time limit is up!!(we have a 2hr limit)
9)If any of the rules are broken it will result in an immediate disqualification!!!

Make a list of around 150-200 items and give a points value to each item depending on its difficulty in finding. Examples: a blue crayon 3pts, a live horse 100 pts. Get a creative as you want. If you want to have a copy of the list I made up feel free to e-mail me at nomejen@yahoo.com.
It’s a good idea to have a rule of what ever they bring in must be immediately taken out. It is also a good idea to have as many volunteers helping as possible and advise the kids to check in throughout the time period.
I also went around to area businesses to get donations for door prizes. I was able to get movie tickets, mini golf passes, video rentals, a ton of free fast food and pizza coupons and much more.
We also contact the police to let them know what was happening so they wouldn’t worry when they saw teen’s running around with hoses and milking machines.

This idea is similar to the Bible Treasure Hunt posted before.
This works with all youth with the older ones helping the young youth, but it also can be worked with older people and younger groups( just make sure in each group there is a mix.

Here’s how it is executed.

Items you will need and things you will need to do before:
1) Figure out the items that they are going to be searching for. Find items around your church or whatever area you are using and find texts that contain the item, or something that is similar or can describe the item. For example, if the thing they are looking for is a rose, you may use a text like Solomon 2:1, “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.”
They have to try to figure out all by themselves which word in the text it is that is the item.

2) Print and cut out the references of each text except the first one. Place each cut-out on, in front of, near, behind or where ever in the vicinity of the item. You may need to use tape. Make them small enough that they are hidden enough but big enough that they can still be found.(If that makes sense to you.) When they find the item they have to look around for the paper with next clue. Oh and remember to number them so that if they inadvertently find a clue out of order they know it doesn’t come until later on in the treasure hunt and will not become confused.

3) Print and give each group a numbered paper with the first text in the number 1 slot. As they move from clue to clue they have to write down the text reference in the numbered space which corresponds to it. You can give points for having all the texts written down.

4) And this is where it gets different from most other treasure hunts. Create a list of a number of actions/ tasks. e.g sing a song in a squeaky voice, read a bible verse backwards etc. You can create different combinations of items for each team or both can have the same list. This is how this part works. Everytime they find an item, one or two of the members of that team(depending on how big the team is in comparison to the number of clues/items/tasks that you have) have to go to the leader of their team and complete the number task that corresponds with the number of the clue they just found. You’ll have to have a judge per team to ensure that they complete the task correctly or as well as they can. They get points for this as well.

You divide your hunters into 2 teams.(More if you want.) These teams must each have a leader. That leader doesn’t actually go on the hunt though as was said before. The leader is supposed to remain at the starting point. When they have designated their leaders, the leader is in charge of giving the tasks to them.

Here is the reason this is called a “Bible Treasure” Treasure Hunt. The very last clue should point towards a Bible. How I designed this part. I had a box with treasure logos on it. Maybe some money symbols and so on. And the last text had a clue to where it could be found(You may need to put this notice on the clue paper so that they know it’s a location they are looking for.) And in that box was a Bible. A Real True Treasure.

Variation:
You can make the clues two-texted. That is, for each clue, one text will contain the item or whatever it is that they are looking for and the other text can contain a clue to where it is. For example the person maybe looking for say rock that you put near a pipe or water fountain. You would have a text for rock(e.g. the rocks will cry out) and a text for water.

©2006 Gem Welch

Contact an organization that helps people in your community (e.g. foodbank, drop-in centre for homeless people). Ask what kinds of things they need (e.g. bars of soap, disposable razors for clients’ use; particular foods–e.g. prepared/canned). From this, create a list of items that groups must “scavenge” (by going door to door). Divide the group into groups of 4-5. If you can, cover an area (say, around your church) on foot. If you wish to cover a wider area, make this a car rally. Give groups a specific amount of time–an hour–to collect as many of the items on their list as possible. Set ground rules to ensure group members’ safety (e.g. travel in pairs, no “racing” that might endanger anyone). After an hour, gather back at the church. Enjoy refreshments and see which team had the most luck scavenging things on their list. Invite someone from the organization to come to talk about how the items will be used (the purpose of their organization) and to thank the youth.
Tip: Ask the organization you are collecting items for to give the youth brochures about the work their organization does. These can be given out to the homes which participate in the scavenger hunt by donating an item. This will also help if anyone questions the youth about their motives.

This scavenger hunt is just something fun for a large group of people to do. You are only allowed to go to houses of people you know, but that are not relatives. You are given a list of things to do i.e. Find the oldest food in someone’s fridge, Sing “For she’s a jolly good fellow” to a mother of 2 children. Or even go to someone’s house take one sheet of toilet paper and flush it down the toilet. This is a great outreach to people who don’t get visitors, and the children get to learn more people skills at the same time, and maybe they just might experience their most embarrassing moment!

Make a list of things that can be done for others such as mowing lawn, rake leaves, washing dishes, sweeping front porch, take out trash, shovel snow, dust, or any basic household chore. Then set up teams (of at least 3 but no more than 6) and have them go to various houses and do things for them. It is a good idea to have an adult helping them since they may be shy. When we did it, we also took buggies into the grocery store and helped someone carry out their groceries. Some people were really surprised by this. We sent a camera along with each team so they had proof the stuff had been done. They also came back with stories of people that did not want them to do stuff and people that were over joyed by kids doing something for someone else. Afterwards they came back and the winning team got pizza.
This is an idea that I got from a youth group in Midland Texas. I have no clue where they got it but I really liked the idea and wanted to share it with you.

My youth group plays this at every lock-in, and it brings a lot of people there – we call it Search for the Holy Grail, and it’s basically a glorified scavenger hunt. The youth leaders print out little strips of paper with clues on them and hide them in their respective places (one clue takes you to the next and so on until the last clue, which leads you to the Holy Grail, which can be anything – we use a coffee mug). We go indoors and outdoors, but it could be strictly one or the other, too. We set up a room and call it ‘jail’, and all of our youth leaders are the cops, and they run around with flashlights and catch people as they try to run around the church (all the lights are off) and find the clues. Similar to flashlight tag, if you get caught in the beam, you go back to jail. The leaders can only catch two at a time. Back in jail, one leader asks kids trivia questions which, if they are answered correctly, free them. Also team members (doesn’t matter how many teams you have) can come and rescue jailed kids. It’s a blast, we always play into the wee hours of the morning.

In searching for different ways to get our youth more familiar with using their Bibles.

I looked up passages in the Bible containing animals that can be found in our local Zoo.

We planned a day a the Zoo. They had to look up the passages, then find them at the Zoo.

You can either have them take a picture (digital cameras are great) or have a leader sign off that the did find the animal. (can be hard on the leader, keeping up with a group of kids) You can make it more interesting by setting a time limit.

I gave them passages that contained 15-20 animals, they had to find at least 12. (Giving them some wiggle room for animals not on display or feeding etc.)

You can get a list of Animals in the Bible at http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/animals.html

Works like a normal treasure hunt, but with a twist! The clues are photographs. At the starting place, each team receives a photograph (maybe photocopied if clear enough). The photo is the first clue location and the group must identify that location by looking at the picture. Difficulty of figuring them out is up to you. Each group should be traveling by car (plan ahead). 5-10 clues will suffice. The group that arrives at the final destination first is the winner. *** My twist: Give each group an envelope with the final destination if they don’t get there before a specific time. You may then serve refreshments and perhaps have a study / talk at that time at a nice locale.