When the weather is too hot (or too cold) for being outside, when the kids have exhausted all their summer bucket list items, when the idea well has drained dry, here is an idea to keep you from losing your mind, mama! All you need is a camera of some sort (Phone cameras work fine!) and a theme for a scavenger hunt. Then you drive, walk, hike, or stroller around a designated area searching for items in that theme and let your kids photograph them.
On this particular day my daughter was running a fever so we couldn’t be around other people, but we were tired of being quarantined to the house so we set off in the car to find murals in the OKC area. I knew of quite a few spots where some good ones were and we learned of so many more just by driving around and keeping our eyes peeled! Most of the pics she could even take from the car window so we didn’t even have to unbuckle and get out and in a bunch of times. It’s also a great way to learn new places and parts of your city. We found some new restaurants and parks we wanted to come back to at a later date!
This activity can be done on a small or large scale and is really for all ages! If my 1 year old can take a selfie than even she can participate! For little ones you can keep it simple—find items in the house that are red. Or you can make it more elaborate—Route 66 markers in a road trip. We did this with my daughter’s favorite stuffed bears a few years ago and planned to make a photo book of all the fun pics we took on Rte 66!
I’m not sure who enjoyed the mural scavenger hunt more. We already have some other ideas lined up for our next outings: a house painted in each color of the rainbow and the buffalo statues all around the city (there’s already a handy website to tell us where to find them!).
I even unknowingly did a photo scavenger hunt as an adult when I photographed front doors in Ireland and the subway tile art in NYC, so it’s not just an activity that’s fun for kids! If you’ve got a destination vacation planned, go ahead and think of a fun photo scavenger you can do while you’re there: different colors of sand, street signs, license plates from all 50 states, characters at Disney world, insects, the options are really endless I’m just trying to throw out some ideas for ya!
What boredom buster ideas do you have? Do you have any scavenger hunt theme ideas for OKC?