"Go NORTH out the door and turn EAST. Find your first clue where the garden meets the gravel path."

The kids have been learning directions and to help them learn which way is which around the house, I sent them on a treasure hunt (note, this was a few weeks back on a warm day, not in the past few when we've had temps in the teens).

I did my best to make at least some of the clues riddles referring to things they've been learning in their science lessons about stored energy and various plants. Some were more effective in that sense than others (to move forward at one point they had to have a refresher science lesson, so I might have made that clue a bit too hard), but each slip of paper sent them running first in one direction and then another, turning them North, South, East and West around the house and garden. By the time they had gone through a few clues when they read, "Go west" or "Walk towards the rising sun" they knew which way to go and even the four year old could point out which side of the house was north.

In the end, they found quarters and graham crackers waiting for them in the dryer and I have been asked many times when they get to go on another treasure hunt.