We’re going on a story hunt and we’re not scared! What IS a scavenger hunt story?

We’re going on a story hunt! We’re super excited and we’re not scared!

Wednesday 5th August 2020 was National Play Day; a moment for the country to celebrate the importance of play. Play (like stories) is crucial to our development as social creatures and to positive mental health. We all have our favourite games and memories of playing with friends and family. In recent times with families spending an unprecedented amount of time together play has taken on a renewed importance and families have had to become very resourceful to stop it becoming stale and routine. In this blog I have written about the play my daughter and I have been enjoying during the lockdown to inspire others and to help keep play fresh. Now in previous years my involvement in National Play Day has been to appear at events organised by local Children’s Centres (the image above was taken at event in Hull when I soaked an audience of 300 during a “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party!” for National Play day 6 years ago). These events have generally been colourful with loads of fun family activities going on but how do you capture the innocent spirit of play using video conferencing?

So far this summer my online storytelling offer has not been all that dissimilar to my regular offer as a storyteller; Roald Dahl’s “The Twits” and “The Enormous Crocodile” and traditional, fairy and folk tales. For National Play Day I decided to do something completely different: a scavenger hunt a story.

I was inspired to create a scavenger hunt storytelling session by the poet, Michael Rosen and Verity and my four year old nephew, Alex. Earlier this summer the two of them were on a Zoom call when my brother proposed a game. How on earth do you play a game with somebody when you are in different spaces without it becoming boring very quickly? The way we played was this, we took it in turns to call out objects which both children then had to find as fast as possible. It was really that simple. Occasionally we had to help them find certain things if they didn’t know what it was or if they were in hard to reach spots but a joyful 25 minutes was spent tearing around the house making a mountain of random stuff.

So assuming that anything that works in my house will work elsewhere, I took the experience of playing a game with my family and put a narrative around it using Michael Rosen’s “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” as an accessible template for my scavenger hunt storytelling session (I’ve done this before with the narrative for a children’s birthday party). In the story we go on an adventure to the library where we have to find a naughty monster who has hidden the keys to the library door and once we find them, we have to tell them a story. As the story unfolds I ask the children to fetch things that relate to what we are about to do (it looks cold outside, fetch a hat!). I hope that the items I send the children to find are in most households but even if they aren’t there is a frantic excitement in searching for something under a time pressure!

Anybody who has ever seen me tell a story live will know that I am a high energy storyteller and that a slightly chaotic scavenger hunt suits me down to the ground. Also, by using such a well known action poem as a starting point I consciously make my storytelling session interactive for my young audience – rather than sitting watching a screen, when they aren’t scavenging for items they’re on their feet role playing the story with me.

On National Play Day the story was a huge success and we got a lot of positive feedback so I’ve decided to do it again. “We’re going on a Story Hunt” will be live on Zoom on Monday 10th August 2020 at 11am. The session will last 30 minutes and is aimed at families with children age 3+. Tickets cost £1.86 per household and available via Eventbrite. Children will need means of drawing a picture and an adult or carer who is happy to help them turn the living room upside down in the name of a good story.

Click here for your ticket.

If you just read this and think it sounds like fun, PLEASE share the information with your friends and family. It’s only fun if people come!

John Kirk is a professional storyteller telling stories in libraries and at events and festivals.  For more information or to make an enquiry, complete a contact form.