Hi

CAN you do a treasure hunt for people who are in bed?

Last year, we made an Easter Story Treasure Hunt in the hospital chapel. However, most children and families rarely make it to the chapel because, well, they're very poorly!!

This year I got together with two colleagues to try and work out how to make this activity accessible to every child in the hospital who wants to do it.

We came up with a simple solution:

>> Hide the pictures where the children can find them. <<

If you've ever done a treasure hunt for toddlers, you'll know that you kind of have to hide things in plain sight.

And if you do a treasure hunt for children of different ages, you need to hide things at different levels of difficulty to find depending on their age; I've often done this by colour coding them, giving each child a different colour to search for.

Making the finding accessible is all about adapting the hiding places according to the child and their current ability to 'hunt':

• If a child can move around their ward or cubicle, hide the pictures around the ward or their cubicle.

• If a child can't get out of bed, hide the pictures around their actual bed, under covers, behind teddies etc.

• If the child can't move to get the picture cards, get them to tell you where to look.

• If the child can't speak, ask them to use their eyes - to look at the card (which you've placed in their line of vision) and then to look at you so you know they've found it.

It's really simple, isn't it?

Meeting people where's they're at takes thought and intention, but isn't usually too hard once you decide you want to find a way.

You could even play this on Zoom; send children you know a Treasure Hunt Pack and challenge them to hide the picture cards somewhere in the room where they do the call. They then look in places you suggest until you find the cards.

I hope this inspires you to have a go with the Easter Story Treasure Hunt

Each pack comes with 8 quality picture cards to hide and a little book to stick them into to tell the story together, along with some simple 'I wonder' questions to explore the story together in an accessible way.

Get your Easter Story Treasure Hunt Pack here

Victoria

PS Don't forget you can also get downloadable Eid Bunting and Easter Puppets