Brain Quest Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger Hunt

When most people think of board games they usually think of table-top games which require mostly fine motor skills or mostly upper extremity use. But I have found many board games that include a gross motor component that moves the whole body, and Brain Quest's Scavenger Hunt is one of those games.

To be honest, a scavenger hunt does not require a board game to be fun. Just make a list of things to find and go out looking. The first person or team to return with everything on the list wins the game. It's pretty straight-forward. Well, I guess that can depend on what's on the list! A scavenger hunt can be confined to one room, held at a park looking for nature items, or conducted in a neighborhood where people go door to door asking for items. You could have a scavenger hunt in your office, at church or in your classroom. At this time, when many families are confined to their homes (COVID), it could be a fun game to play with the whole family. The hunt location and items collected are limited only by your imagination.

Brain Quest's Scavenger Hunt incorporates a game board so there is a little more to it than just collecting things. The board measures 20" x 20" and has a 31 space path, from start to YOU WIN.   

Game board

The game includes six pawns for players to use to move along the path, a 2-minute timer, a spinner and 100 cards. Each card has something different on each side, so 200 items total on 100 cards. Each card will name one item or one category of things to find. Each card has a colored border around it, four colors in all, and the different color borders are played on different rounds. More about that below. Here are examples of items to find on the cards:

• Something that smells really bad
  
• Towel that is not white
  
• Shoe that is too big for you
• Anything that begins with the letter A
• Something made of plastic
• Vegetable
• Something shiny
• Food that comes in a bag
• Picture of a family

The spinner has four sections that will instruct you to move ahead 1 space, 2 spaces, 3 spaces, or move another player ahead 1 space. 

Below are the instructions for playing this game, but if you are stuck at home and want to play a sit-down version, try this:

Use a pile of old magazines and make a list of say 10 things to find. Tear out pictures that fall into the categories. See who can be the first to find eight of the 10 items. Use the pictures and move right into a craft project like making a collage with your pictures, gluing them onto a sheet of paper. Incorporate scissors and glue, or just tear around the edges of the pictures and glue them down. Add glitter, stickers, sequins, macaroni, beans, whatever you can find around the house, to get really fancy. Lots of hand skills can be incorporated into an activity like this.

Object:
The first player to the YOU WIN space on the board wins the game.

Set up:
Place the board on the table. Each player chooses a pawn and places it next to GO on the game board. Separate cards into stacks by border colors. Place six cards with blue borders on the spaces on the game board. Players look over the cards showing what they will need to find.

Play:
Turn over the 2-minute timer and everyone starts searching. Find as many of the six items as you can before the 2-minutes are up. When time is up, everyone returns to the board with their items. Each item you find only counts as one item. If you find a basketball, it cannot count as something round AND something orange. One person reads one card at a time, and as each card is read all players that found something in that category move ahead one space on the board.

Play three more rounds, using a cards with a different border color for each round. Play until someone moves into the YOU WIN space and wins the game. 

Try this:

• Skip the board, just use the cards.
• Skip the game, just look at the cards with categories and think of things that you see that would fall into that category.
• Lay ground rules before you start, such as you can't go into personal spaces like other's bedrooms, purses or backpacks.
• Go through the cards and take out any that don't apply. Or, if there is not something that applies in the house, such as a bath toy, be open about what can be collected. For instance something that could be USED as a bath toy could apply.

If you are interested in purchasing this game or just want more information, click on the image below.

Zoo-Opoly

Zoo-Opoly - For lil' zookeepers

 

Zoo-Opoly is another Late for the Sky brand junior monopoly game. I have blogged about several of these beginner Monopoly games and they all play the same, just different themes. So I am going to copy and paste a portion of my Pet-Opoly post here. Where ever the game differs because of the theme, I will adjust it to reflect what is unique to this game, Zoo-Opoly.

Zoo-Opoly is easier than the original Monopoly games in several ways:

• A game only takes 30-45 minutes to complete.
• The bills (footprints) come in denominations of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Easier counting.
• There are no equivalents of houses or hotels to buy.
• There are only 16 spaces for sale instead of 28.
• The Go Bananas card pile that you draw from on the board also includes some gross motor activities including Everyone do your best imitation of a monkey in the zoo, Jump up and swim like a seal around the table and balance one of your smiley markers on your nose for 10 seconds.

Themed pieces include eight different zoo animal pawn markers, smiley face space markers and zoo animal deed cards. The back side of each deed card also includes several fun facts about that particular animal.

 

If you like this game, check out a dozen Little Kid Monopoly games I have posted about.

 

Object:

Be the player with the highest number of footprints at the end of the game. Play until someone owes more footprints than he can play. Or, just play for a stated amount of time.

Set up:

Place the board in the middle of the players. Place the Go Banana cards in a face-down stack on the board. Give each player a certain number of bills (called footprints), per the instruction sheet. Each player chooses an animal pawn marker and places it on the square that is marked PLAY. Give each player all of one color of smiley markers. Deal the deed cards between the players per the number given in the instructions (depends on how many are playing). Find each property you own, per the deed cards you were dealt, and place one of your smilie markers on that space to show others who land there that you own it.

Play:

Players take turns. Throw the die and move your pawn forward that many square on the game board. Here are the instructions for how to proceed after landing on space on the board.

• Animal space without a smile on it - The player looks at the amount of footprints listed on the bottom of the space, pays that amount to the bank, receives the deed card, and places one of his smiley markers at the top of the space. That player now owns that animal/space.
• Animal space with a smile on it - The owner of the space is paid the number of footprints shown at the bottom of the space. If the player happens to own both spaces with the same color border, that owner is paid twice the number of footprints at the bottom of the space.
• Get Wild - A player collects 2 footprints from the banker any time he lands on or passes this space.
• Go to Stormy Day - The player immediately moves to the Stormy Day space. If the player passes Get Wild in the process of moving there, he does not collect two footprints. The player must pay the banker five footprints. The player will move forward as usual on his next turn.
• Stormy Day - If a player lands here by the roll of the die, he is just staying dry and moves forward as usual on his next turn.
  
• Zoo Exhibit spaces - There is one Zoo Exhibit space on each side of the board. If a player lands on any one of them as he advances around the board, by the roll of the die, he must place two footprints on the Discovery Zone space.
• Go Bananas spaces - A player must draw a card and follow the instructions on that card. This may result in gaining or losing footprints.
• Discovery Zone - If you land here you can take any/all footprints on this space.

Continue advancing around the board until someone is required to pay an amount and does not have enough footprints. That player is out of the game. Remaining players count how many footprints they have and the player with the most is the winner.

To see a list of games with money, click here.

Try this:

• Assign the person who is working on counting or making change to be the banker.
• Gather a small stack of mixed bills and ask the individual to separate them and sort them into the correct denominational piles.
• Hold the deck of property cards in the non-dominant hand and use the thumb to push each card off, one at a time, to deal.
• Stand up all of the smiley face markers that will be used for the game by holding 2 or 3 in the palm and moving them, one at a time, to the fingertips to rotate and place on the table. 
• Cup the hand, curl the fingers together, and hold for several seconds while shaking the die without dropping. 
• Sort the smiley faces by color.
• Put the smiley faces away after the game by asking the player to cup the hand, hold the fingers in that position, and then slowly drop the smiley faces into the palm one at a time while counting. If he has trouble cupping the hand, first shape the player's palm by putting a small ball or round object in the hand and forming the hand around it. Then remove the ball.
• Put the smiley faces away after the game by picking them up one at a time and squirreling them into the palm. How many can the player hold without dropping? 
•  Work on visual discrimination, figure ground, spatial relations, eye-hand coordination, turn taking, following directions, motor planning, gross motor movement, manual dexterity, in-hand manipulation, palmar arch development, grasp, reach, bilateral integration, play and leisure exploration and participation, creative play, socialization skills, executive functioning skills, process skills, strategy, decision making, simple addition and subtraction
  
  If you are interested in purchasing this game or just want more information, click on the image below.