I seriously can not believe my baby turned 3. Remember when I told y’all I was pregnant for the first time? And then newborn pictures, 6 month update, party animal 1st birthday, and then a parking garage bash for his 2nd birthday because mama was tired and we had a 3 week old at home. And now, I’m a proud mama to a curious, squishy, adorable one year old and a determined, dare devil of a three year old!

Since both of my babies are born in March, we decided to do a simple joint birthday party on a weekend in between their birthdays. For Max’s actual birthday yesterday, I thought it would be fun to put together a scavenger hunt, clue game to make his simple presents a little more exciting. It was fun to make the game, and even more fun for everyone to watch him hunt down the clues.

Clue games are not new to our house, my mom made us clue games when we were little, and I’ve made Andy hunt for gifts for the last 10 years! I’ve even been known to show up friends’ birthday with a clue game prepared. When I make clue games for adults I always do silly rhyming couplets, but for a little one that can’t read you can just use pictures!

Here’s how to make a clue game for a toddler:

First, look around your house and think of a 6-10 spots you know your child would recognize. Things like favorite toys, food, or locations around your home. I like to pick very specific things (dump truck, outdoor swing, vacuum) to keep it simple.

Next, use index cards and draw the objects. I use thin Sharpie markers to draw the outline and then color them in with Crayola markers. Try to make your drawings as specific as possible. Maxwell is making sure the remote in my picture and the real remote are the same in the picture below! If you were feeling fancy, you could use actual photographs, but I promise you’re drawing skills will suffice!

Once you have all of the objects doodled on index cards, it’s time to organize the hunt! I like to try and make Max go inside and outside and from room to room. Also, consider what spots are good spots to hide gifts. I knew I would hide a gift in our outdoor swing, but the remote controls would not be a good gift hiding spot. So, put your cards in order of how you want the hunt to go down.

Then, on the backside of each card write where that card needs to be hidden to make the hunt work. For instance, I started the game off with the remotes so, on the back I write “hand” so that I know to hand that one to Max. That card got put into a very fancy envelope for the birthday boy. Next, I was sending Maxwell to the giant dump truck so the dump truck card needed to be at the remotes. And on the back of the dump truck card I wrote remote so that I knew to put the dump truck card with the remotes. Am I making sense?