A few weeks ago we were set a brilliant new challenge as members of the Bathtime Fun Squad – to create a scavenger hunt with the Bathtime Buddies range. This challenge was right up our street, as Willow is forever asking me to hide things around the house so she can play a game trying to find them. She will often then tell me to close my eyes so she can then hide them for me – only she seems to always put them back in exactly the same place! It’s a fun game anyway, although I do think she believes I’m the worst scavenger in the world – ‘unable’ to spot the treasures even when they are right in front of me 😉
Our challenge was to encourage our little lady to find the following: –
Something fluffy
Something shiny
Something that grows
Something colourful
Something that flows
I wanted to do this in the garden as I had some great ideas for hiding places, however the summer never did seem to want to start! Whenever Willow was at home with me it was either raining or she didn’t want to play. With the sun making a brief appearance on a day when we had no plans at all, I managed to finally set up the hunt last week.
I hid the first Bathtime Buddies Squirting Duck on the washing line, and told her to look for something fluffy. This was a little hard because our washing is never particularly fluffy, but I helped her along by reminding her that towels can be quite soft – then she spotted it straight away tucked in the hood of her bath towel.
Next we went for something shiny, which was our rather unused BBQ. The purple duck was easy to spot peaking out from the black BBQ cover, and whilst she admired it I managed to snap this quick photo, which also shows the green duck hiding by something colourful!
For something that flows I hung the Wash Buddies duck from the garden tap – although I think the size and colour made it rather an easy spot and I didn’t have to give her any clues at all!
This gave us a good opportunity to talk about ‘things that flow’, and we had a nice little chat about where we might see water flowing – taps, streams, the sea! I also talked about how there are rubber ducks that came off a shipment and have been floating around for years and being used to charter the ocean’s movements, but I’m not sure she quite believed me! Still, it was nice to talk about and one day she might find out that her mummy doesn’t always make stuff up!
After quite a few more clues to find the green duck who was cleverly camouflaged, I told her that the last yellow duck was near something that grows. Willow’s reply was instantly ‘My carrots are growing’ and she headed straight for our mini vegetable area. She’s just too good at this game!
I loved being able to use the scavenger hunt as a way of talking about all the things around us, and it was also a great way to get Willow thinking about other things that were similar. It’s a lovely, satisfying feeling to realise that our children do listen and take onboard the information we give them, especially when they talk about things that were discussed weeks ago. The carrots were a prime example because they were planted months ago and we haven’t really paid them much attention with the weather being so bad. Still, she remembered they were there!
At the end of our little game Willow also pointed out that she was growing, and asked me if she was tall enough to go on a roller-coaster now. That’s my girl! 😀
Thank you to the H&A team for sending us these lovely little bath toys to have fun with. I’m so glad we finally got to do this scavenger hunt out in the garden. It’s been brilliant fun, and I’m sure we’ll be repeating the game next time the sun comes out to play. Just goes to show that bath toys are just as much fun outside the bathroom!
Check out our short little video of Willow using her ducks to count with (she could do with a little more practice!)
Everlasting beta test 