Story Trail Scavenger Hunt Potions
October's book at the Story Trail was "Room on the Broom" by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.
Our program for this book was Scavenger Hunt Potions.
Our invitation was as follows: Visit the Story Trail on October 4 at 5:00 to fill a mini cauldron with spell ingredients while walking the trail, reading "Room on the Broom" by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. At the end of the trail, make a potion like the witch in the story. Iggety, ziggety, zaggety, ZOOM!
I designed the Scavenger Hunt on Canva, after walking the trail for ideas and seeing what was easily accessible and in abundance. The only thing I would change in hindsight is giving them options (flower or fern/pinecone or acorn) because all the kids insisted on having both, and some of those (namely the pinecone) were a little harder to find than others, which is why I made it an option. But I should have just left it out altogether.
For the cauldrons we just used the plastic mini cauldron party favors, which are easy to find online at Amazon or Oriental Trading. Check out my giant cauldron full of baby cauldrons! Like the wings at the Fairy Tea Party, the kids were delighted to have something to take home at the end.
At the entrance of the trail, kids got their mini cauldron and a copy of the scavenger hunt.
They walked the trail, read the story, and gathered their potion ingredients.
We prepped wands with paper straws from Wal-Mart and a coloring page from RoomontheBroom.com that we let the kids color in before they used them to stir their "potions."
We measured out a tablespoon of baking soda and put them in little baggies with instructions on each (as pictured). We filled squirt bottles with vinegar for the Bog Juice.
At the end of the trail, on the picnic tables, they colored in their wands, and added baking soda and vinegar to their potions to make them fizz. We had extras on had for repeat potions--it was a big hit. We had juice boxes on hand as well.
Later we had a couple of schools schedule field trips for us to do it as a class activity. Two of our librarians dressed as witches and led the kids down the trail. Since it was a smaller group, they were able to do witch hats instead of wands. It was so cute!