When my oldest daughter turned 13 she had a slumber party with about 8 of her girlfriends. We wanted to make her birthday special and yet try to keep it as low-cost as possible. One thing we decided to do was send the girls on a scavenger hunt.
We had a twist with our scavenger hunt. It was a VIDEO scavenger hunt. We divided the girls up into 2 teams and sent each one of them with a scavenger list and a video camera. The rules were that they had to get all the items on the list on video and every team member must be in at least 5 of the shots.
Each shot had to include at least 2 team members and they had to get permission from the homeowner before recording them on camera and they couldn’t get more than 3 shots from any one house. We also told the girls that they had to stay together at all times and that since these were our neighbors, they had to be respectful, courteous, and remember their manners.
It was a huge hit. They had so much fun. My daughter’s birthday was close to Christmas so we were able to include some holiday items in the hunt, which made it fun as well. And when the girls returned, we watched the video. Afterward my husband threw the video altogether and made a DVD of it for them to take home with them.
Fun – at no cost with great memories.
Below is the list we used to get you started but you can change and adapt it to fit your own occasion. One advantage the video scavenger hunt has over a regular scavenger hunt (in addition to getting to watch it afterward and see how the kids acted) is that the items on the list don’t actually need to be collected; the kids just need to show them to the camera. I have to say my favorite segment was seeing a girl show a man how to do the Macarena! I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes.
VIDEO SCAVENGER HUNT LIST (suggestions)
– Standing by a Christmas wreath WITH home owner
– Christmas cookies or Christmas cookie recipe
– A green napkin
– 13 birthday candles
– A can of COKE
– A bag of Doritos
– Someone in animal or fuzzy slippers
– A pet that is NOT a dog or cat
– Cartoon Band-Aid
– Chop Sticks
– Flexible/Bendy straw
– Get somebody to use YOUR cellphone to call your home number and ask for the birthday person
– Team members spinning under a street light (bonus if you have a non-team member with you)
– A garage door opening
– On a slide (with homeowners permission)
– With a Disney Princess character
– Something red you can hold in one hand
– Dribbling a basketball (OUTSIDE)
– Somebody saying “Get off my property”(NO team members in this shot, and hopefully, you asked them to say it)
– High five a child under 10 (they must state their age)
– High five someone 10 or over
– A piece of Christmas stationery
– Tinsel
– A team member wearing a BSU hat
– A team member wearing a wig
– A team member getting perfume sprayed on them
– A bar of soap from a hotel
– A balloon
– One or more people (along with 2 team members) signing “Happy Birthday”
– Bag from a mall store
– Sticker on team members forehead
– Team jumping in the air simultaneously!
– Team in someone’s car (YES, with their permission)
– Someone doing the Macarena
Have fun with it – but remember to have your children be polite and respectable. What a great memory they’ll make.
Editor’s note: Checkout our Scavenger Hunt printable for a more traditional hunt.