Make Your Own Scavenger Hunt

A guest post by Aliza Sussman:

I love the shuk (Machane Yehuda in Jerusalem) and have recently been going there without the kids to do shopping during the week. Last week we were on our way to visit my dad in Jerusalem,when he called and asked if we could come a little later in the day. Being that we were half way there, we needed to come up with another activity before visiting him. We needed it to fun but at the same time, not spend a lot of money. That is when the idea for a Shuk Scavenger Hunt came to us.

Our oldest is nine and youngest is two, so it had to be fun but we had to find a way to keep us (Mommy & Daddy) involved. We could not let them run wild in the shuk on a Friday morning. Between my husband and I, we thought of 10-15 tasks that needed to be completed in and around the shuk. We had a camera and phones so we included picture taking in the tasks. My kids thought it was a great idea-except for the nine year old who at first was too embarrassed to take a picture holding a fish or posing with random strangers. Her opinion soon changed...

We parked in the parking lot off Agrippas, put the 2 year old in the stroller, got our water and headed toward the shuk. It took a few minutes to divide the teams but I took the 5 and 7 year old boys while my husband took the nine year old and two year old. We decided each task was worth 5 points and we would see how many we could do in a half hour. We were off! The first task was finding three men with the name Meir. My 7 year old went up to strangers and asked if his name was Meir, while my 5 year old was looking for Chayalim (soldiers) to take pictures with. We did not find Meir but found three different chayalim who were very happy to take a pic with two cute boys. While we were searching for men named Meir, we found a fish stall and I grabbed a plastic bag and held up a fish for a picture- Two tasks done and on or way.

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