Need an easy award your Eager Beavers will love? Scavenger Hunt is just what you are looking for! All five requirements fit neatly into three related activities and the setup is simple. This award definitely has a springtime flair, but it would also be an excellent award to prepare at the beginning of the year to keep around as an emergency award. Hopefully, your year will go just as planned, and if it does, you’ll want to make sure to slide it into a meeting near the end of the year. Not only is it a fun award, it is required for Eager Beaver Investiture Achievement (My World).
The most challenging part of this award (if you don’t teach it sometime between February and April) is requirement #5. You need plastic Easter Eggs. I’d recommend you plan ahead or get creative!
Scavenger Hunt & Bible Story
Fulfills Requirements # 1, 2, 4, 5a
Before the meeting, prepare by hiding easter eggs in the classroom and placing a baby doll in a basket in another location of the church. You could keep the activity all in one room, but as we have the church to ourselves, I decided the kids would enjoy a bit of exploration.
Give each child a Scavenger Hunt checklist (in the printable pack at the bottom of this post). If the weather is nice, you could do some of this scavenger hunt outside. The items on the list are things that should be easy to find in most churches. The two possible exceptions to this are the adventurer logo and a baby doll. There is a logo in the printable pack just in case you need to stick one on your wall for this award! You will need a baby doll both for the scavenger hunt and for the Bible story.
For four Eager Beavers, we hid eight eggs in four colors. Each child was instructed to find two eggs (and only two eggs) of the same color. Each egg contained several identical stickers. The stickers will be used in the craft.
Bible Story
Fulfills Requirement #3
When the baby in the basket has been discovered, take a break from the hunt to enjoy a story! We read the story of Baby Moses from the Beginner’s Bible (page 92). Only one baby doll in a basket is needed for this, however, as we had lots of babies available, we put multiple babies in the basket so everyone could hold “Moses” during the story. After you finish the story, finish the scavenger hunt, and find the eggs.
Craft: Treasure Chest
Fulfills Requirement #5b
Open up those eggs to find your treasure! We placed heart stickers in our eggs to be used on the craft. The purpose of this requirement is to share. Divide the stickers between your eggs so each child will get some duplicate stickers and will be missing others. Encourage them to share with their friends so everyone gets one of each sticker. (I also made some extra stickers just in case something went wrong and stickers got lost before they made it back to the Eager Beaver room.)
Color the treasure chest (or don’t – it’s not required here), and put the little hearts “in” the chest.
To make the stickers, you will need label paper and a cutting machine (and a printer, obviously). The cut file is below.
Don’t have a cutting machine? That’s fine too. Print on either regular printer paper or card stock. I designed these to work nicely with a one inch paper punch. (I haven’t tested it though. If you do, please leave a comment telling us how it goes. If the printable needs fixing, I’ll gladly modify it!) You could also cut the hearts apart on your paper trimmer. There are two versions in the file – one with circles and one without. Use whichever one fits your needs best. Do your Eager Beavers LOVE cutting? Print the page with circles. Cut apart with a trimmer. As part of the craft, they can cut out the circles or the hearts.
Extra Time
This award can go very quickly – especially if you stay in one room the entire time. (Obviously, going outside will take up considerably more time. There is so much to see out there!) I prepared a Card Community Service project to fill whatever time was left at the end. We also used the expected extra time to teach the kids Exodus 20:8, which is another Investiture Achievement requirement. Encouraging the kids to re-hide the eggs for their friends to find would also be a fun extra activity.
Printables and Cut Files
Note for the Cut File: The red line should be a kiss cut and the blue line should go all the way through the sticker and backing.
Thanks for reading. If you teach this award, I’d love to hear how it went! Also, I’m curious, do you keep a prepared award on hand just in case? What awards do find work well for this?