Most kids LOVE hiding! Whether it’s themselves or essential day to day items that you need to be able to find quickly, often keys, there’s lots of fun to be had. From super simple to games that involve the whole neighbourhood, here are some of our favourites:

Hide and Seek. The classic. At its most basic one person closes their eyes and counts to ten while others hide, then hunts around for everyone with the last person to be found being the winner (if you want to have one!). Firstly, there’s something about grown-ups doing unexpected things which can really delight kids so getting fully involved and finding comical hiding places will make the game extra fun and bonding. You can add in more rules to make it interesting

– play in the dark with the person seeking using a torch

– play ‘sardines’ so one person hides while the rest count, then everyone looks for that person.  When a seeker finds the hider, the seeker has to squish into the same hiding place and this keeps going until the last seeker finds everyone else squidged in together!

– challenge older kids by setting conditions like you must wear a hat, or your hiding place must begin with the letter ‘c’. Or give prizes for inventiveness; lowest hiding place you can find, warmest hiding place, hiding place that gets the biggest laugh from the seeker…

If you want a game that may (and I say ‘may’) buy you a few minutes to yourself, you can set up a hiding game in advance…

– hide lots of things of a certain colour around and then send your small one-off with a bag to collect them

– make a pile of toy animals, or a list, and hide a food that each would eat (real/toy/picture/word) so kiddos can seek out each animal’s dinner

– For little ones to enjoy different sensations, hide items with different textures in a container filled with balls/fabric/sand/rice/balled-up socks. Try putting in pairs of items to give an extra challenge.

and if you don’t have time to set anything up, why not try one of these great scavenger hunt ideas? Especially good for older children…