Modern humanity is so spoiled by gifts that there are fewer and fewer things that are truly expected. What is really missing is the emotion, the feeling of the game, and even an exciting chase. This applies especially to children. In the case of a birthday, you can somewhat decorate the program without handing the gift from hand to hand, but by coming up with a not very difficult task that will make the hero of the occasion literally get his present. The quest in the form of searching for a gift by scrapbook is gaining increasing popularity, allowing you to search for the main attribute of the holiday not only alone, but also with the help of loyal friends.
What it is?
This word has long been popular among young people. Quest is a whole genre of computer games, mainly with a detective plot. Their meaning is to search for certain objects (as well as criminals) step by step, from hint to hint. The birthday quest is similar fun, but in the end, the child will discover what he has long dreamed of.
Children are very fond of various riddles, so imagine how exciting the situation looks when you are looking for your own gift, and even do not know which one!
The quest shouldn't really load the brains of the lover of such entertainment. It should just amuse the birthday boy and guests, so you need to avoid too complicated ideas.
Usually, in such cases, they offer to look for a gift by notes, the tasks in which, if any, are at the most primitive level. Adult organizers must be sure that the kid will easily cope with the challenge, will not give up in the process and will not just cry out of frustration and disappointment, not being able to solve another riddle that is too difficult for him.
As a result, a properly prepared quest (not very difficult and optimally selected in terms of duration) only provokes the baby and makes him feel close to the final goal, additional emotions appear.
The main thing is that at the end there should be something that he really wanted, because in the process of searching, he probably thought more than once about what it could be, and unambiguously presented there exactly what he most dreamed of.
Try not to disappoint the birthday person. It is for this reason that quests are usually not organized for too young children - they quickly get upset and give up, and also dream about a gift too boldly and clearly express their bewilderment if reality does not coincide with expectation.
Location
It is quite obvious that such an undertaking requires a certain (specially prepared) place. You can properly prepare the quest both in the apartment and in nature, since the main requirement for the location is a relatively large space, otherwise the gift simply cannot be hidden so that it is not found immediately.
Organization of a quest in an apartment or in a house has its own advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is the presence of many places where you can hide both the present itself and the clues indicating the way to it. The clues themselves should also be hidden, at least relatively, so that the birthday man does not manage to jump a few steps ahead and solve the riddle ahead of time. The abundance of furniture and accessories allows you to stretch the search for a hidden object up to ten or more steps.
As for the main drawback of organizing a quest in an apartment, it lies in the layout of most modern dwellings. The fact is that the organizers will certainly want to stretch the route as much as possible, and for this, at the very beginning, they will deliberately lead the seeker away from the goal.
In an apartment, this usually means that the gift is hidden somewhere near the starting point of the game - now try to safely hide it right in the corridor (the child is unlikely to be able to make a full circle around the living space without ever going through the corridor again).
The main thing here is not to play too much, otherwise the whole birthday of the birthday person will be in a run, trying to get to the place where the guests hid the gift.
An additional complication of playing outdoors is that both the gift and the notes are not so easy to hide - you won't force a child to dig in the ground for a clue.
Separately, it is worth noting that in nature there is a risk of outside interference in the quest - clues can be carried away by the wind, and it is also quite possible that the gift will be found faster by someone else, completely unrelated to this holiday.
How to do it yourself?
Initially, the organization of quests for children's parties was entrusted exclusively to children's animators, but you can do without a specialist, having come up with and completed the task on your own. There is nothing difficult in this: the main thing is to find a place, and it will be quick and easy to come up with a children's script or find an idea on the Internet.
If it seems to you that you know where to carry out the quest, do not think that everything is ready - it is recommended to make a map of the area or apartment, on which arrows should be used to mark the intended route of the gift seeker.
Already at the stage of drawing up a map, you should clearly understand where the main intermediate points will be. They should not be obvious, immediately striking - it is quite possible that a child, upon learning that a gift is hidden somewhere here, will rush to look for it by typing, without performing the invented tasks.
Naturally, this will also give a result over time, so you should not hide the gift in an overly obvious place, and the clues also do not need to be in plain sight.
Then think over the tasks yourself. You can get off with simple notes: on a hanger in your coat pocket - "in a washing machine", in a washing machine - "in a microwave", but this is too boring, worsens the game, and the search process is reduced to a maximum of a couple of minutes.
The optimal time for searching is 10-15 minutes, so complicate and embellish the task a little by organizing the search for a gift in verses, in riddles, in the form of rebuses.
It is very good if you can combine all these methods in one quest, but remember that the tasks should be simple and straightforward. In a small apartment, a child who gets off the track can accidentally jump several points at once and reach the goal prematurely.
When all tasks are ready mentally, implement them in a material form. Add a little creativity - the baby is not solving a school problem, he is having a holiday, so do not spare bright colors for a beautiful design. Before starting, unnoticed by the main character, hide the gift and notes in the planned places - and you can start.
Example of finished tasks
For many inexperienced organizers, the most difficult task seems to be coming up with clever clues that would clearly indicate the location of the next note - while being creative and slightly more difficult than directing it.
Here are some ideas on how to encrypt the prompt:
- Riddle. For example, "the coldest place in the apartment" is the freezer, and the following note will be there. It can be in rhymed form or even encrypted as a rebus.
- Composite answer from elements. This includes both a puzzle from a cut photo or a drawing of an object in which or near which the next clue is hidden, as well as composing a place name from a set of letters hidden along with the previous clue.
- Referring to an outside resource. The next hint can be recorded on the answering machine, which will have to call the birthday boy. Alternatively, you can hide the next hint in the book, and the child will find out its number on the shelf by seeing the number of comments on the page on the Internet (at the address indicated in the previous note).
So, the options can be very different. The main thing is to approach the preparation of the holiday with imagination, and then the child will simply be delighted. He will never forget this wonderful day.
For information on how to make a quest for a child's birthday, see the next video.
