So morning activity for today was supposed to be hide and seek championship, but it just didn't take off. The kids were sleepy, I made a juice, and time just got away from us. That happens some mornings. I was tempted to try and do a make up session this afternoon, but in the spirit of radical honesty I figure I want this blog to be founded on, I've decided to document when this #MorningFunManifesto doesn't work as well as when it does.
Hide and Seek Championship is perhaps the easiest of the morning activities to do. It's just playing hide and seek with your kids. I like hide and seek a lot, I think it implicitly instills a sense of independence (when you're the seeker) and an ability to be silent and contemplative (when you're the hider). But because it takes no prep at all, it's also the easiest activity to drop. However, it's also an easy activity to bring in as a substitution, and I wouldn't be surprised to have it come in again towards the end of the month.
There's still a lot to do today that's #MorningFunManifesto related, because tomorrow is supposed to be Treasure Hunt. Treasure Hunt is the kids' favorite morning activity, and it takes the most prep (about an hour, usually). But it's worth it.
Zephyr is doing a "subway study" in school now, and they have a presentation on Friday. So I decided that this treasure hunt will have a subway component to it. While I was out today, I got a free subway map from a tourist information booth, and when I got home I started writing up some clues.
Here's how treasure hunt works: There's one starting note, three hidden notes, and one hidden treasure chest (filled with 4 small toys). Each note gives a clue to the location of the next note, but to figure it out, the kids need to solve a problem. At first, it was just to complete a rhyme, but as the kids have gotten better at Treasure Hunting, I've changed up the types of problems. There's been riddles, rebusses, and last month we used math problems to come up with digits in a combination lock (in that one, the chest wasn't hidden but instead locked in a terrarium and left in plain sight). A few pictures from that hunt:
So after writing and printing out the clues (which I'll share tomorrow), I load up the treasure chest, and then hide the clues and treasure chest throughout the house. For example, I hid this clue in the top of a large Lego head:
We'll see tomorrow if it works... it should be a good one.