Night-time Safari Game
January — the hustle of the holidays are over, winter is in full swing, the daylight is short, and we may find ourselves cooped up at home with our kids in the late afternoon/evenings with still a few hours before bedtime. Enter a fun game specifically for evenings when your kids still have energy to burn and it’s too dark and cold to play outside: Night-time Safari. This game delivers a lot of simple fun and time to connect with your kids without needing to plan ahead or prep materials in advance.
Materials: For this activity you will need as many stuffed or toy animals that you can find in your home and a flashlight.
- Have your child wait in their room while you hide the animals around the living room, making sure to leave some of them peaking out from different places, such as behind couch pillows or under a chair and in between the books on the bookshelf.
- Then turn out the lights in the living room and surrounding areas so that it is dark.
- Invite your child to come out for a night-time safari with their flashlight and find all the animals that are hiding.
- Your child can put the animals in a basket or backpack as they find them so that they’re all ready to be hidden again if your family would like to play another round. Alternatively, if you have more than one child, they can count how many animals they found and then invite their sibling to come see if they can find more.
Children love looking for hidden objects and treasures and all the more fun if they get to use a flashlight. They may even want to take a turn hiding the animals themselves and ask you to go on a hunt with the flashlight. Allow your children to adapt and expand this game as they play. You never know what other kinds of fun and connection it might lead to!
