When my kids were little I made these treasure hunts in a bottle for them.
They were great boredom busters and came in handy when we were sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office or on a road trip.
Here’s how to make your own treasure hunt in a bottle:
- Find an empty plastic bottle or jar with a lid, making sure it’s clean and dry inside.
- Fill it almost to the top with clean, dry sand. I suggest playground sand, but white rice will also work if you don’t have sand.
- Next, add fun little doodads from around the house (try looking at the bottom of your kid’s toybox). Don’t use too many items because you want it to be fun and not too difficult. I suggest using about 15 -20 items for a small honey bear as shown above.
- If you don’t have little toys, raid your junk drawer to find things like coins, paperclips, thumbtacks, bottle caps & buttons.
- Once you’ve added the I SPY treasure, put a little glue in the threads of the cap when screwing it back on to keep it from being opened.
Let the FUN begin!
If you’re making one for each of your kids, try adding different things in each bottle, this way the kids can trade and each treasure hunt will be new.
You can turn it into a challenging game by setting a stopwatch to see who can finish their treasure hunt first.
