WE NEEDED TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE! All while keeping a safe 6 foot separation between us and anyone else who may be out walking, of course. So I made my kiddos some scavenger hunts, and we walked the neighborhood paying attention to the little things.
Here in Oregon, we escalated from wash your hands more rigorously, to schools are closed down, to shelter in place, all in the matter of a week. We are all doing our best to navigate what this "new" (and hopefully very temporary) normal looks like in our lives.
In our house, we and our kiddos are home full time now, but we have been trying to keep a moderately normal schedule (as normal as it can be when you can't really go anywhere). That said, my son wakes me up every morning before the sun rises asking, “Mommy, what are we going to do today?” 😂😴😂 We live within walking distance to my sons school, so each morning we still go on walk, as if we are walking to school. On a whim one morning, I threw together a scavenger hunt for him and my daughter to do during our morning walk.
We had SO MUCH FUN looking for things and it was amazing how fast an hour went! I decided that I needed to make more. On our next walk, I kept a note on my phone adding other things we saw in our neighborhood that I hadn’t thought of before, and made several versions.
I posted our shenanigans on Instagram, and had such sweet little notes asking if I could share what we were doing, so I fine tuned them a bit, added 12 different versions, and posted them in my Teachers Pay Teachers store as a freebie. The outpouring of love for them was so sweet. 🥰 So I thought a blog post would be a fun way to share it with even more people. Social isolation is hard. Social media makes it easier! ❤️❤️
There are so many unknowns. So many big emotions right now. I feel anxious about health, finances, the economy, how long this is going to last, and so much more, but my kids don’t have to know any of this. They may very well look back at these weeks as some of the best memories of their lives. A time when we played more games. Watched more movies. Ate more comfort foods. A time when we were just fully together.
I am constantly begging for more time with my kids. More time to soak up the littleness of them. More time to make memories. More time to be fully present. More time without distractions. More time simply together. And while this isn’t exactly the way that I had in mind, I’m choosing to look at this time as a gift. I pray that through all the anxiety of this situation, you can find joy too.
Download these free scavenger hunts by clicking the photos above (anywhere but the "pin here" circle OR by clicking HERE.
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