Do you need a quick, easy game for a birthday party, or just something fun to do with your kids on a rainy Saturday? I suggest one of my all-time favorite games: a treasure hunt!

When we had a houseful of kids for my birthday a couple of months ago, I thought it would be fun to do a treasure hunt for them. Brenda and I spent an evening dreaming up good hiding places in and around the house and yard and drawing the clues. It’s a good thing we had fun doing that, because I think it took the kids less than ten minutes to race through all the clues and reach the treasure. It was so much fun, we decided to do another treasure hunt for Annalie’s birthday party, and it was another big success.

The beauty of a treasure hunt is its simplicity and adaptability. All you need is paper and pen, a little time, some hiding places, and willing participants. You don’t really need prizes because the hunt itself is so fun. (My brother and I used to create treasure hunts for each other just for kicks when we were kids, but maybe we were weird.) You can use a huge variety of prizes, tailored to the likes and ages of the treasure hunters: candy, toys, a coupon for a trip to the park or the ice cream shop, a cooler full of beer…use your imagination!

For this treasure hunt, we had a wide range of ages (10, 6, 4 and 3). We decided it would be easiest to have the kids take turns, so we tailored the clues according to each child’s age and familiarity with our house, and used a different color of paper for each child to make it easy for them to tell whose turn it was.

Once we had that all worked out, Brenda and I made a list of ideas for hiding places. We tried to think of spots all over the house—the stepstool in the bathroom, the spice cabinet in the kitchen, the gate in the front yard, the laundry chute in the garage, Annalie’s little desk in the living room—and worked out which order we wanted them in. Then we started drawing.

Brenda and I both like drawing, but our clue drawings were far from perfect. We just drew enough to give the kids an idea of what the clue was supposed to be. If your treasure hunters are old enough to read, you can just use written clues, either straightforward (“Under the couch”) or cryptic (“Your next clue is where food goes to chill out”). And of course you can be on hand to give extra clues during the hunt.

The part that’s kind of tricky is hiding the clues. I used to mess this part up all the time as a kid, accidentally matching clues up to their hiding spots, which doesn’t work at all. If you open the fridge and get a clue for “fridge” that will only confuse you.

When we planned the treasure hunt for my birthday we made a list and put the clues in order before we even started drawing, and numbered the clues as we went. I’m not sure if that made it easier or harder. When we did the treasure hunt for Annalie’s birthday, we were lazy. We made a list of a bunch of possible hiding places, then took the list and paper upstairs with us so we could watch Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. While we watched, we just checked off items on the list as we drew them. Once we had a dozen or so clues, we stopped drawing and put the clues in a pile to deal with later.

On Saturday while Sue was doing a craft with the birthday girl and her guests, Brenda and I took the stack of clues and picked out which one we wanted to be the first clue. We already knew the last one would be the “treasure chest” in the living room, an old chest that Troy and I refinished years ago and currently use as an end table, so we put that one at the bottom of the stack and hid the rest of the clues in the following manner:

1. Let’s say we had six clues (we actually had more, but I think you’ll get the idea after six), and that the first clue was the piano. We set aside the piano clue and walked upstairs to the piano.
2. We hid the second clue (the welcome sign) on the piano and walked outside to the door where the welcome sign is hanging.
3. We hid the third clue (the cats’ climbing tree) on the welcome sign, then walked back upstairs to the cat tree.
4. We hid the fourth clue (the kitchen rug) on the cat tree, then walked back down to the kitchen.
5. We hid the fifth clue (the calla lilies) under the kitchen rug, then went outside to where the calla lilies grow.
6. We hid the sixth clue (treasure chest) inside one of the calla lilies, then went upstairs and hid the treasure in the chest.

It sounds confusing at first, but I found that hiding the clues in that making-it-up-as-you-go fashion was actually easier and less confusing than making a list and planning it all out.

Once the clues were all ready, we divided the kids up into teams, gave them a quick rundown of the rules, and handed them the first clue. The next five minutes were a blur of shouts and laughter, girls racing upstairs and down and inside and out, trailing bits of white paper in their wake as they moved from one clue to the next. I’m not sure if they had more fun with the hunt, or with opening the chest and finding a basket full of prizes wrapped in brightly-colored tissue paper, but they most definitely had fun.

Forget pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey—I think doing a treasure hunt will be the traditional birthday game in our family!

These photos were all taken March 11, 2009, and can be seen in the photoset kids’ treasure hunt! on Flickr.