It's that time of year again, time to take our child on the road for a soccer tournament. Like many kids, she began playing soccer when she was four years old. Since third grade, we have had the opportunity to go out of town once or twice a year for a soccer tournament.
Traveling with a team is such a great experience. The kids bond and the parents get to relax and socialize a bit. As much as the kids love to run loose around the hotel it is not always a pleasant experience for hotel guests and parents. For our last trip, I came up with a fun scavenger hunt for the girls to do. You can use this for your soccer team or modify for other team sports.
Items Needed: All items should be available at your local dollar store
- 3 different colored packs of sticky notes
- Markers and pens
- Clear tape
- Paper to make number slips
- Bag or container to put slips in
- 3 folders
- Prizes or candy if desired
Get Fit (Before You Go):
1. Write everyone's jersey number on a slip of paper.
2. Write or type Rule sheets for three teams. See below and modify as desired.
3. Write or type Clue sheets for three teams. I decided on eight clues. You can search online to find other ideas if you want to change some or make the scavenger hunt last longer. The hotel locations I chose to hide clues were:
- The fitness center
- The dining area
- Main lobby restroom
- The pool area
- A stairwell
- Cold water in lobby (as a substitute for an ice machine)
- Vending machine
- My hotel room closet
Warm Up:
1. Scout out the hotel to make sure you know if clues make sense. Some modification may be necessary. For example, our hotel did not have ice machines on every floor.
2. Use three different colored sticky notes such as blue, yellow and pink. I labeled them with #1-8 for each clue. On the back of each sticky note was a clue to unscramble. Ours unscrambled to R-O-O-M-1-4-2-!
3. Place sticky note clues throughout the hotel. Get another parent to help with this.
Game On:
1. Put the slips of paper with jersey numbers into a grab bag. It was spring so I used a Soccer Easter basket and Easter Eggs to put the slips of paper in.
2. Have the team manager or coach select three slips out of the bag. These will be the three team captains.
3. Have each team captain take turns picking slops out of the bag until all the players are divided among the three teams. (We had 14 players which resulted in teams of five, five and four kids)
4. Read the rules out loud
5. Give each team captain the clue list and pen
6. We hid our coach in a room closet at the last spot.
Everyone ended in our room and the winning team got prize goody bags and all kids got candy.
Be creative and have fun!
