"You didn't make our egg hunt hard enough, Grandma!"
Those were the words that my son said to my mother after our Easter egg hunt last year. My mom does an awesome job making our Easter egg hunt into a scavenger hunt each year. The kids love it, but obviously they were getting a little used to her normal hiding places.
Fast forward to this year...my mom is battling cancer like a boss, but she just didn't feel up to the challenge of an Easter egg scavenger hunt this year, she also didn't want to disappoint the grandkids, sooooooo. Enter my super techie/outdoorsy/nerdy brother-in-law Rex, who decided to take on the challenge, and holy cow did he do a good job!
Rather than do a normal scavenger hunt with clues, he decided that kids needed to work for their eggs. He planned out 4 different courses that all required the kids to use a compass, and measure their footsteps.
The kids started by figuring out how many of their steps equaled 100 feet. After that, he taught them how to read an orienteering compass.
They had to line the compass up to their "heading" degree, then align the compass so it faced north.
After that it was as simple as following the arrow the required number of feet to find their egg. I got to follow my 11 year old around, and it was so fun!! He got pretty good at lining himself up, and realized that it was really helpful to look for a target in the distance before starting to walk.
My daughter and her cousin worked together (they are the youngest), while the older 3 all worked solo. The final stop...grandma :)
All in all I'd say it's going to be hard to top this experience next year!!
