We’re having another cold and rainy spring day her in New York, which makes this the perfect time to share one of my preschooler’s favorite indoor activities – a Sea Life Indoor Treasure Hunt! I’m participating in the #HowISafari campaign and I’m excited to share some of the ways we use Safari Ltd toys to play and create in our home. The activity I’m sharing today is great for indoor and outdoor play and incorporates some education printables as well (you can grab them for free below). We will be creating a Beach Day Treasure hunt using a large container, a Safari Ltd® Good Luck Minis® Sea life Fun Pack and some play sand (or kinetic sand).
It’s easy to set up and clean up, so I love it too. Here’s what you need for your own Sea Life Indoor Treasure Hunt:
- Safari Ltd® Good Luck Minis® Sea life Fun Pack
- A large container
- Sand (we use kinetic sand to make clean up easier indoors, but any kind works – affiliate)
- Digging tools
- A blanket or tablecloth to play on if you’re doing this indoors (we use a beach towel)
- My printable Sea Life Fact Cards (download them at the bottom of this post! I laminate the cards so that we can use them over and over without worrying about damaging them).
Fill your container with sand and bury the Safari Good Luck Minis. Place the container, digging tools and sea life fact cards on a table or the floor – your sea life indoor treasure hunt is ready to begin – lay the sea life cards out of the floor and hand the digging tools over to your kids. As they uncover the Safari Sea Life Minis encourage them to match the creature to the correct fact card, then read the facts together (this is great for different ages as well, as you can use the cards to encourage beginning readers to read on their own!). Once we’ve found all the creatures my kids love to bury them and start again. I like to quiz them on the card facts and see hoe much they remember about each sea animal. When they get tired of the treasure hunt we move on to free play and they will often spend the rest of the afternoon playing with their Sea Life Minis in the sand.
I love this activity for how fun and educational it is. It also encourages children to work on fine motor skills as they dig through the sand, and it’s a great form of sensory play!
When play time is over I just gather up our blanket or tablecloth and dump the sand back into the container for another day of play!
There are tons of great ways to continue making this sea life indoor treasure hunt fun and educational over and over again: bring the cards along with you on a trip to your local aquarium and have a real life treasure hunt or grab a shallow bowl of water and challenge your kids to sort the animals by land dwelling and sea living. You can also make a game of reading the facts off the cards and having your child choose the sea animal to go with them.
If you add the sand and animals to a small tupperware container this also makes a great on the go activity!
Download the Free Printable Sea Life Fact Cards Here.
What great things do you love to do with Safari Toob Animals?
This is great! I have a little one who will not be so bored on our next rainy day! Thank you so much for sharing!