Wednesday 11 July 2007

Sweet 16 scavenger hunt at the mall - and hooray for the GAP manager!

Nikki,

Sorry it's taken a while to get back to you. Yes, we had our scavenger hunt. It was for my daughters' Sweet 16 and she had invited 10 friends.

We had been looking around and trying to think of something fun to do. I came across several websites about scavenger hunts and she agreed to letting me plan one. The hard part was I had less than one week by the time I got your book online. But I had some basic ideas and used your book to help out.

It was very fun. I took them to the mall with a list of 16 stores they had to find via an envelope with a 'pictionary' type clue on it. They were divided up into 3 groups, so I had 16 envelopes of clues, all in the same order for each group. I started each group out at a different spot on the list, so they wouldn't run into each other. At each store, they had to do one of several options: take a picture of themselves doing something, (at the GAP, holding a pair of underwear that my daughter would wear); find/purchase an item (at a bead store, they had to buy a small string of beads for under $3.00 in her favorite color) or contact someone at the store for their task, etc (at the GAP, the manager had them walk out of the store quacking like ducks! She really got into it!!)

I provided them with a list of rules (which we went over beforehand), some money to use for specific tasks, pens and paper to list the stores on and a bag with the clues in it. They were to call me if they got stuck on a clue.

Everything had points, so the first team done, didn't necessarily win.

My daughter was very afraid I would make them do something 'weird' and was fairly anxious about the whole thing. The GAP store manager was a riot and really got into the whole thing. She was so fun and the girls actually really had a lot of fun! It was a cold weekend here, so the mall was VERY crowded on a late Saturday afternoon. I had contacted the stores where they were to take pictures and got oks from all of them. That's how the Gap manager got involved. She couldn't wait to help out.

The crowds at the mall were a problem, in that at one store one group had to wait to pay for their item for 15 minutes, which eventually left them without enough time to get to the last clue. But all in all , it was a huge success! The girls all had a great time and were very excited to participate. Afterwards, we took them all out to a local restaurant to eat and we gave out prizes there. We had used digital cameras, so while they were getting dressed to go to eat, we loaded them to my husbands' laptop and

were able to show them all at dinner. That was really fun and they were all laughing.

So, that's how it all went. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun for the girls. Plus, no one else had done anything like that before, so that was very cool. Score one for MOM! ha

Your book was a big help. I hope to use it again sometime. I'm thinking how fun an adult one would be. Hmmm.....

Sandy Kollmorgen, Virginia USA

More details on a great Teen Treasure Hunt here

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