Halloween Treasure Hunt with MAOAM | AD

* This is a paid blog post in partnership with MAOAM. *

Hands up if you’re a fan of Halloween! If you are, you will love this little indoor trick or treating idea: a Halloween treasure hunt. Read on for full instructions and photos. 

I’ve got to admit that every year, I mourn the loss of long, bright summer days, but one thing that makes me happy about autumn is Halloween. So when the lovely people at MAOAM challenged me to share one of our fun, light-hearted Halloween mischief ideas, I couldn’t wait to get involved! MAOAM champions mischief for families because of all of its benefits – it promotes creativity, spurs children’s imaginations and helps families bond while having fun! Their Mischief Hub has loads of ideas for family fun, pranks and mischief – check it out!  

As a child, I remember longing for the brilliant time people seemed to have on the other side of the Atlantic, so as a mum, I’ve made sure my children could get as much Halloween fun as possible. 

Our little Halloween traditions

Every year, on October 1st, we dig our decorations out of the cupboard and turn our house into a ghoulish haunted mansion. All our pretty frames go in the cupboard and out come warning signs, upcycled lanterns, creepy skeletons and signs to warn off potential visitors. 

We carve pumpkins, buy loads of sweets and non-food treats for trick or treaters, dress up and enjoy the spooky spirit with our friends and neighbours. 

Since it would be difficult to make sure we respect social distancing rules whilst trick or treating, I’ve decided to go with a Halloween Treasure Hunt at home instead. The children and I used MAOAM’s Mischief Hub for inspiration and decided that our Halloween fun would have to abide by the 10 Golden Rules of Mischief you can find here. 

A few days ago, we put our mischievous hats on (quite literally) and dug out all of our Halloween bits and bobs. I’m always ‘chief decorator’ in our house and end up putting things where the children tell me to. 

Since my children were quite frankly disheartened at the thought of not going round trick or treating this year, I decided to pull all the stops to create a fun (yet quick and easy) Halloween treasure hunt for them at home

Halloween Treasure Hunt – Instructions

Here is how to put together a fun and exciting indoor Halloween treasure hunt: 

What you’ll need: 

A few packs of MAOAM treats (I went with Stripes, Pinballs, Bloxx and Joystixx)

Tissue paper (orange or black)

String or ribbon

Cardboard (I used the flap from a parcel I’d received that day)

Scissors

A ruler

White sticky labels (or a sheet of A4 paper and glue)

A black pen

A chunk of cucumber and a knife

Where to hide clues and treats for your Halloween treasure hunt:

First of all, think of where you want to hide the tricks and treats. To make it last as long as possible, make sure your clues aren’t too simple. Ideally, you want to make the children go from one end to the house to the other and back again a few times. It makes the treasure hunt so much more exciting!

Just as a side note, I also didn’t want them to start emptying every cupboard in the house – let’s not spread our sanity to pieces in the process! – so once they’d found the right spot, the bag of treats and tricks was easy to spot.

For my hiding places, I went with their pyjama trunk, our blanket box in the living room, my bed, the drawer where we put all the dolls, the fridge, and the bike shed. 

Clues were as follows: 

When you’re getting ready for bed, you wear your… (pyjamas, hence the PJ trunk)

Where would you look if you were cold sitting on the sofa? (blanket box in the living room)

Mum’s favourite place in the house (my bed! – funnily enough, they found that one under my pillow straight away)

We’ve only got cute ones but Mamie has some creepy ones (the drawer where we put all the dolls – my mum has a weird collection of spooky dolls)

Baby it’s cold in there! (fridge)

We always go to the Aquadrome on our… (bikes – the Aquadrome in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, is our favourite place to go on our bikes)

How to make the tricks (clues) for the Halloween treasure hunt:

I’d decided to hide my clues in MAOAM Stripes and Joystixx. I did that when I was at home on my own so no one could walk on me as I was doing it. 

Very carefully remove the Stripes from 5 MAOAM Stripes of different colours and as many from MAOAM Joystixx as the number of children who’ll take part plus an extra one. When you’re done, reward yourself by them – that’s the perk of being the one in charge of the Halloween treasure hunt, peeps! 

Cut five 6×3 cm cardboard rectangles and one10x3 cm one. Keep the 6×3 rectangles flat and fold the 10x3cm one into a triangular prism (that one will go in one of the MAOAM Joystixx wrapper). 

Cover them with the white labels or glue white paper onto them. Write your clues on those. ‘We always go to the Aquadrome on our…’ goes on the triangular prism, which will fit perfectly in the Joystixx wrapper. 

Hide your tricks / clues in the empty MAOAM wrappers and as you do, take note of which colour leads to which hiding spot. 

For the MAOAM  Joystixx ones, cut some cucumber strips that are 10cm long and about 0.5cm thick. Make a cucumber trick for each child, and include the last clue in another MAOAM  Joystixx wrapper (the one that will lead to the final destination – the bike shed in our case). 

Using the tissue paper and string / ribbon, make little parcels of tricks and treats, making sure you note which trick went in which pack. In each of my parcels, I put 2 treats per child (well, one child would always end up with one treat and one trick). 

Hiding your tricks and treats

Hide the little parcels as well as a larger ‘loot’ (a bag full of MAOAM goodies) in the place where the last clue takes them (in our case, the bike shed). Keep the first parcel in a safe place (the one that will lead them to the place where you put their pyjamas).

When the children get home from school, tell them to dress up and get their trick or treating bags / baskets out for snack time. 

As they are getting ready, place the first parcel (the one that will lead them to the PJ trunk / drawer / cupboard) on the dining room table next to their snack. Once they’ve had their snack, they can open the parcel and start their Halloween treasure hunt! 

We had the best time with our little Halloween treasure hunt. Why don’t you have a go?

Disclosure: This blog post is part of a paid relationship with MAOAM promoting its Mischief Hub guide. Get ideas here. You can find MAOAM on social media:

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