Almost every parent on the eve of the New Year faces the question: “How to entertain your children for the New Year?” How to congratulate in an original way, how to give gifts, how to entertain. Many methods have already been tried and tested over the past years, I want something new, original.
In this article, we will tell you one excellent and relatively new type of entertainment, which is suitable not only for giving a gift and congratulations in an original way, but also for entertaining children in an interesting way.
You can conduct a New Year's quest for children!
What is “New Year Quest for Children”
For those who don’t know what a “home quest” is, we’ll tell you, and for those who know, we’ll remind you. A house quest, or in other words, a gift search, is a game in which the player or players are asked to solve a series of puzzles in order to find a gift. The puzzles are designed in such a way that the answer to each puzzle is an indication of the place where the next puzzle is hidden. Each puzzle is drawn on a card, which in turn is hidden in a cache. It turns out to be a kind of chain of puzzle cards that leads the player to the final cache where the gift is hidden. As children, many of us called this game “searching for a gift using notes.” Nowadays the name “quest” is more popular. New Year's quest is a type of home quest that is held specifically for the New Year. After all, the New Year is probably the most classic example of a holiday that is ideal for conducting a quest. The child will be happy to find a New Year's gift this way.
Let us also make a reservation that by calling this action a “home” quest, we mean that such a quest can be carried out, of course, not only in a house or apartment. The venues can be very different: a house, a personal plot, a city yard, a forest, a restaurant, a school, a kindergarten, and so on. Therefore, you can conduct a quest for children for the New Year almost anywhere, if only you have the desire and imagination.
You can see what a home quest is in our video review.
New Year's story quests New Year's family quests New Year's internet quests New Year's quests for children New Year's quests for school New Year's quests in the office and cafe New Year's quest cards
Prizes and gifts for the New Year's quest
On New Year's Eve, it is not necessary to hide New Year's gifts, and in this situation you won't have enough of them, especially if a large company is playing. The solution is to stock up on small surprises:
- Christmas tree decorations in the form of different figures or animals, snowflakes will remain as a memory of the fun quest.
- Sparklers, firecrackers (but remember to clean up after them, and children should only use under adult supervision).
- Beautiful New Year's caramel in the form of canes or other beautiful sweets
- Cool stationery - everyone needs them and won’t remain useless trash.
- New Year-themed books or coloring books with tasks.
- Masquerade hats, glasses and other paraphernalia - you can immediately dress up and take fun photos!
Quest is an amazing, exciting and win-win way to congratulate children
If you have never held such an event for your children, then you have missed a lot. This type of entertainment is relatively new and not many people know about it. Moreover, many people associate the word “quest” with computer or board games, or with the now popular questrooms or, as they are also called, live quests.
Home quest is a “simplified quest room” right in your home. After all, looking ahead, let’s say that quests are not just a banal search for a gift using notes, but a large, well-thought-out plot adventure, for example, such as the Detective New Year’s quest.
After completing the quest, children, as a rule, remain wildly delighted. There is no greater pleasure for them than rushing around the house looking for new task cards, anticipating the end of the journey and the coveted prize at the end. And adults themselves sometimes enjoy the process even more than the children themselves. After all, watching children at this moment is an indescribable emotion. By the way, we recommend capturing the process on camera!
"In Search of Treasures"
According to the scenario of the quest “In Search of Treasures”, brave participants will go in search of the treasures of the legendary pirate John Silver.
This quest has 2 versions:
1. for adults and teenagers;
2. for children.
The quest can be carried out: in nature, in a country house, in a park, at a recreation center, in a camp, in a yard or at home. The desired option should be indicated when placing an order (since the tasks for an indoor or outdoor party will be different).
The kit includes:
- A message from the legendary pirate John Silver,
- hint cards,
- bonus,
- invitations,
- additional entertainment and props for them.
Go to it.
A more complete version of pirate-themed entertainment is collected in the “Pirate Party” scenario.
It includes not only a quest, but also pirate challenges (competitions and games), decor and an example of background music.
What you need to conduct a New Year's quest for children at home
The main thing you need is time and imagination. Usually before the New Year there is a lot of bustle and business, so finding time to sit down and think through the quest is often not enough. And there is something to sit here about. Not only do you need to select tasks and puzzles for the quest, you need to draw up a diagram of the quest in which you will distribute all the cards in their places, but you also need to formalize all this. Those who have the skills to work with graphic editors on a computer or who can draw and write well with their hands will have no problems for them. But if you don’t have either, then it’s more difficult. In this case, you may find numerous materials that can be found on the Internet useful. You can also find a ready-made kit with a New Year's quest scenario for children. But we'll talk about this a little later.
"Agent. Evacuation"
A difficult and confusing mission for spies. You can do it outdoors and indoors, or you can combine it - all options for hiding places are included in the kit.
The script is suitable for:
- children over 10 years old,
- adults
- and teenagers.
The tasks included in the set are different. In addition to the fact that players will need to find evidence, they will also have to talk to witnesses, conduct an investigation and evacuate agents who failed the mission.
For example, in this video task you need to guess and fold the card correctly, then you can read the password that you will need to hack the detective’s flash drive.
Go to the spy quest.
Selection of tasks for the quest
We have already devoted a separate article “Tasks for the quest” to the selection of tasks for the quest, because This is quite a voluminous topic. In the framework of this article, we will talk about this briefly - about how it is necessary to select tasks for a quest, taking into account the New Year's specifics.
The tasks can be very different, ranging from simple riddles and questions to complex crosswords and logic puzzles. If we talk about riddles, then everything is simple - you take a riddle about an object and that’s it. The item that will be the answer to the riddle will be one of the places where you will hide other puzzles. We give a good selection of riddles in our article “Riddles for quests”.
What we said about riddles also applies to questions. On the Internet you can find many interesting questions about various household items.
Since we are talking about a New Year's quest scenario for children, it would be nice if the riddles and questions were as close as possible to the New Year's theme. For example, the answer to a riddle can be objects such as a snowdrift, a sled, a snowman, a Christmas tree, and so on.
More complex types of tasks - puzzles, crosswords, puzzles, etc. require greater imagination and resourcefulness in order to adapt them for use in quests for children. After all, you need to do the task in such a way that the answer to it must be the name of some place or object where you will conduct the quest. There are a huge number of types of tasks that can be used in a quest. Let's look at a couple of simple examples of how ordinary puzzles can be turned into quest cards.
The picture shows an example of a simple New Year's task for a quest. This is a New Year's garland with light bulbs, with parts of the words from the riddle written on it. Those. this is a kind of maze that players need to go through in order to read the riddle, and then answer the riddle itself. It turns out to be a two-stage task - first you need to collect the text of the riddle, and then guess the riddle itself.
Another example: New Year's crossword puzzle. If you solve this crossword puzzle, you will be able to read the keyword "iron". So the place where the next task is hidden is the iron. And please note that this is not just a crossword puzzle, but a New Year's crossword puzzle, with New Year's questions. This is precisely what distinguishes the tasks from the New Year's quest - in that they must have a New Year's theme in one way or another. In the example with the garland, the basis of the task was a New Year's garland (why isn't it a New Year's theme?), and in the crossword there were questions about winter and the New Year. And, of course, New Year’s assignments. We'll say a few words about this a little later.
More examples of tasks for quests and ways to prepare them can be found in the article “Tasks for the New Year’s quest.”
Table of contents
- What is a New Year's home quest?
- Where can I arrange a quest?
- Tips for choosing a quest scenario
- Ready-made New Year's quest scenarios
- Options for New Year's quest tasks with examples
- We conduct a New Year's quest on the street
- Conducting a New Year's quest at school
- Prizes for the quest
- Conclusion
Watch our video instructions about preparing a home New Year's quest:
If you liked this video, go and subscribe to our YouTube channel, there is a lot of interesting information about quests and more.
Selection of keywords - places and objects
Not every item or place can be used in a quest, because... we still need to come up with a task that would point to this place. It can be quite difficult to adapt any puzzle to a specific location. If we are talking, for example, about a crossword puzzle, then you will proceed from what letters are in the words - answers to the crossword puzzle questions. And if in our example above we were able to use the word “iron” as a keyword, then sometimes it can be quite difficult to find the name of an item. Therefore, first of all, we recommend making a complete list of places and objects that you would like to use, and then trying to “shove” them into a particular task. When you finally create a complete list of caches for tasks, draw up an outline of the quest - i.e. the order in which players will find tasks. From this link you can download a template for a convenient quest outline. This is a sign that, by filling it out, you won’t get confused about which task is hiding where and what it points to. This tablet will help you in the process of placing cards in the right places and control the game during the quest itself.
Registration of assignments
Since we are talking specifically about a New Year's quest for children, the design of the cards should be appropriate. This is the main problem if you personally are faced with the preparation of such a quest. As we have already said, if you have the appropriate skills and capabilities, then you can arrange everything beautifully yourself. If you don’t have such skills, then you’ll have to do it as best you can, or look for ready-made solutions.
In the examples that we looked at above, you have already seen how you can design a card in a New Year’s style. Here is another example of one task. Typical New Year's elements in the design of the card make it atmospheric and pleasing to the eye.
How to start the quest
It is best if the child does not even suspect what awaits him. The quest should be a surprise. And ideally, if this happens at the moment when the child is waiting for a gift. You can create such an environment that it will seem to him that he is now finally going to receive his treasured gift, but instead you give him a card... He opens the card, still in anticipation, reads the congratulatory text in which you congratulate him Happy New Year and... Instead of a gift, the postcard invites him to take part in a game to find this very gift! The first task is also included in the postcard - the first step towards the gift! This is the first moment of pleasure for you and for the children. For you - to see how children are surprised and intrigued and eager to start the adventure as soon as possible. For children - the pleasure of the upcoming adventure.
In addition to the described method of presenting a greeting card for a New Year's children's quest, we can advise you on several more ways to do this. For example, slip this card into the place with your child's toothbrush in the morning. He gets up, goes to brush his teeth, and then there’s this surprise. Another, more interesting way is to cut out silhouettes of footprints from paper and place them from the child’s bed to the place where the postcard is hidden. The child will wake up in the morning, see the footprints, follow them and find the postcard. How to present a postcard and how to start a quest is a matter of your ingenuity and imagination. But you probably shouldn’t put a postcard in a plate of porridge! )))
By the way, the text in the postcard can be written not on behalf of the parents, but on behalf of Santa Claus. As if he had decided to arrange such a test for the child.
