Here is a step by step to create a quest your kids will love this Christmas!
My favourite thing about creating a quest with your elf is that the story you create for your believers is true! The elf comes along and asks your children for help and whilst helping the elf your children are suddenly their very own heroes this Christmas!
So... How do you do it?
Step 1: What's the story?
Think up your own narrative... Does Santa need help? Has a problem occurred that needs fixing?
Here you have the chance to choose where the jeopardy is - but like any good Christmas film the real question is... will they save Christmas?
Step 2: How many days?
How many days would you like to complete your quest over? If you plan to use your elf and set up the next part of your elf quest each night, to be found in the morning, how many quest set ups would you like?
Sometimes deciding on the number of days might go hand in hand with the next step: Deciding on the activities and puzzles.
Step 3: What puzzles/ activities?
When deciding how the narrative will intertwine with your activities ensure you consider the age of your child/ children and what they will enjoy together.
Simple puzzle ideas could be:
A letter jumble that spells out a word
An actual jigsaw style puzzle to put together
Riddles
Treasure maps
Then, depending on the narrative you have chosen, link the clues to some fun and simple activities. For example:
A drawing
Making a Christmas food
'Sending' something to the North Pole
Step 4: Put it all in order
Once you know what the story is, the puzzles and activities you can now begin to put everything in an order. Potential things to consider are: the days of the week, if you will be swapping between activity and puzzle or completing all the puzzles over the first days and then the activities over the last few.
Once you have an idea of the order you can move onto the props.
Step 5: Create your props
To begin creating your props, I find the easiest starting place is the note cards from your elf.
Now you have an idea of the number of days and the order of the activities, begin writing your note cards from the elf - be sure to try and use 'elf speak'!
I find hiding a number somewhere to be very useful!
Once you have an idea of what the elf is going to say, you can then fill in the blanks with your puzzles and activity props. E.g. creating a jigsaw puzzle, possibly a letter from Santa!
Step 6: Run your elf quest and Have fun!
Now you should have everything you need to run your own elf quest.
Select a day to start, having prepared everything in advance, making the nightly set ups a breeze!
Remember to have lots of fun with the quest when your children are interacting with it. Give them time and space to try and solve the clues themselves and remember to keep the story alive!
Does this seem like a lot of work?
Check out our 12 day elf quests here that does all the work for you!
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