Author Archives: support@textclues.com

Bike Ride Scavenger Hunt

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Looking for a way to add some excitement to one of your family bike rides? Then you should think about using a TextClues scavenger hunt for some family friendly fun.

First you’ll have to find a good bike path with some landmarks along the way. These landmarks will be used in the clues of the scavenger hunt. If you can’t remember enough landmarks or want to look for specifics you could ride the trail before hand or take a ride in the car to come up with some good clues.

Next you’ll want to come up with prizes. A good idea is having a treat near the end of the bike ride for everyone to enjoy. You could stop off at the local ice cream joint or popsicle stand.

Here’s an example hunt to get the ideas flowing for your own fun day out.

Clue: Time for our ride! Head from the house Toboggan Aquatique Gonflable and along the trail that leads over the river. Whats the name of the first street you cross?

Answer: Jones Street, Jones

Clue: Great! Now turn left down Jones street until you see the house with the green doors. What’s the name of the trail that leads down beside the house?

Answer: Oak Trail, Oak

Clue: That’s right! Continue down Oak Trail until it ends and then turn left. What is the first building you see?

Answer: Dairy Queen

Clue: You made it! Now head inside for some ice cream treats with you dad.

To see the TextClues service work on your phone try out the demo for free!

An Amazing Race using Text Messages

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Here’s an idea for a fun activity for a group of friends: set up an Amazing Race using TextClues. First, split everyone into teams. The leader of each team needs a cell phone to answer the text message challenges. You’ll want to have clues that lead the teams on an amazing race all over the city.

Before you start the race, you’ll want all the teams to compete in a contest to determine who gets a head start. This can be a trivia game or each team can dress up in matching costumes Parcours Obstacle Gonflable and you judge which team looks the best. Based on the scores, you can stagger the teams so that one leaves every 5 minutes, so they don’t all race off at the same time. You can schedule all the text hunts to start at the same time but just don’t give them the envelope with the first clue until they leave.

It’s up to you whether you want all the teams to have clues in the same order, but we do have a “shuffle” button if you want to randomize the clues for each team.You’ll want to come up with a scoring system. Each team has three tries for each clue, so you can give them 3 points if they get it right on the first try, 2 points on the second try, or 1 point on the third try. Finally, there should be a bonus for the time taken for each team to finish the amazing race and get back to the starting point. You could make this a percentage bonus to prevent teams from just guessing everything wrong but finishing first.

Here are some ideas for clues you could use:

Clue: Welcome to the 2012 Amazing Race. Check for the first clue in your envelope. (Inside the envelope you have the clue: Head west 10 blocks. What year was the church built?)

Answer: 1967

Clue: Head north to the park. Mike will be waiting for a game of bean bag toss. He’ll tell you the answer when you finish the game.

Answer: Mike is awesome

Clue: Good job. Now head to the fair trade coffee house where we always meet up with Liz. On the wall they have a picture of a plantation from what country?

Answer: Brazil

Clue: Head to the high school track and meet Jen. You guys will have to run some laps :) She’ll tell you the answer when you finish your sprints.

Answer: Jen rocks

Clue: How many tennis courts are on the other side of the school?

Answer: three, 3

Clue: Head south 6 blocks until you reach a park. What’s it called?

Answer: Jacob’s Park

Clue: Head to the baseball stadium. How many years has it been open?

Answer: 34

Clue: Use the pay phone to call Mike. Everyone on the team has to talk to him to make sure you’re all still there.

Answer: Subway

Clue: Yes hop on the subway and take it north 3 stops. Head into the shopping mall. What’s the name of the hair dresser up on the third floor.

Answer: Antonio’s

Winning Message: Alright you’re done! Now run back to the start of the race before the others make it back!

 

Try our demo to see how to create a text message amazing race.

Shopping Mall Scavenger Hunt

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Looking for a fun activity for a group of kids or teens? Well a Mall Scavenger Hunt provides family friendly fun at a very affordable price. There are a few different types of mall scavenger hunts. Have a read and pick your favorite.

The first is called a budget scavenger hunt. Each group is given a imaginary budget
and needs to come up with the best “purchases” for a certain scenario. They don’t
actually buy anything but instead write down what they found and can only “spend”
their imaginary budget. The scenarios can be fun like: A trip to the rain forest, a day
on the beach, climbing mount Everest or if you were trapped on a desert island.

Another fun idea is called the A-Z scavenger hunt. Here the Jeux Gonflables groups need to find an item starting with all the letters of the alphabet. You can give them a chart that has all the letters of the alphabet, a place to write the store name and a place to write the
product name.

The last option is a classic clue scavenger hunt around the mall. For this type you’ll have to head to the mall the day or morning before the hunt to come up with a list of clues. Walk around and look for interesting and funny features in the mall (storefronts, advertisements or mall features). Then ask questions about these features in the scavenger hunt.

Whenever you’re making a scavenger hunt you should consider how the TextClues service can make it that much more special. It allows you to complete the scavenger hunt entirely using text messages. See how it works using the demo.

Fill in the blank scavenger hunt

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Here’s an idea for a fun text message scavenger hunt where the player has to fill in the blanks to win:

 

Clue: Skittles. Taste the ______

Answer: rainbow

Clue: Hasta la vista, ____

Answer: baby

Clue: M&M’s melt in your mouth, not in your ____

Answer: hand, hands

Clue: May the ____ be with you

Answer: force

Clue: A martini. Shaken, not ______

Answer: stirred

Clue: E.T. ____ home

Answer: phone

Clue: ______. It keeps on going and going and going and going.

Answer: Energizer

Clue: They’re always after me ____ charms

Answer: lucky

Clue: Snap. ____. Pop

Answer: Crackle

Clue: You sunk my _____

Answer: battleship

I hope that gives you some ideas. Check out TextClues to create your own text message scavenger hunt!

Scavenger Hunt Riddles (Part V)

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We’ve got a few more riddles here that you can use on Tente Gonflable your next scavenger hunt. Use them to lead you hunter to the next prize hidden somewhere in the house. Don’t forget to check out all the other riddles we have on the site here.

  Bathtub   In this small pool little yellow ducks rule!
  Check in the place where wet warm water washes you well
  Look in the place where bubbles sooth all your troubles
  Sink   Don’t forget to wash your hands!
  Go to the spot where your hands rub before you touch grub
  Check the spot you see the water gush as your teeth get a brush
  Shower   Here the wall spouts spraying water out
  Check in the place where wet warm water washes you well
  In this spot you can make it rain again and again
  Closet   Everyone knows this is the spot where you hang your clothes
  This room may be small but it holds your clothes, shoes and all
  You can find cleaning supplies in this small room along with the broom
 Basement   In the space that’s underground your next prize can be found
  Look in the space down below where things for storage go
  Look in the space down below the cold air likes to go

Save time and use TextClues to make your next scavenger hunt.

Corporate Team Building Activity: SMS Scavenger Hunt

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With weather as nice as we have been having lately, there is no better time to have a team building or corporate scavenger hunt at your company! Instead of being confined within your office building, why not have the hunt occur out on the streets/within the city (if your location permits). A text scavenger hunt allows for people in your department to enjoy some fresh air, have a nice change of scenery, and have a fun day out with their team!

Now, when you first bring up “scavenger hunt” with your department, they may be a bit hesitant or unsure of how they feel about it – they may feel like it is childish, or would rather not participate in such events.  But I can guarantee you that once they get into the hunt, and become slightly more competitive by wanting to beat their fellow colleagues to win the hunt, they will be sure to have blast by the end of it all! Our website, TextClues, makes it super easy to create a scavenger hunt because you do not need to leave a paper trail of clues around the building or city (wherever the hunt is taking place) instead we let you send text messages to each team’s cell phone for the hunt, so the setup is quick and easy!

How should you set this all up?

  • Begin with finding out how many participants will be available to participate in your event (block off time in your teams calendar for a good two hours so that the team will have to join in on the team building experience!).  Once, you know the number of people, you can split off each team into smaller groups of 4 – 5 (or they can be larger or smaller depending on the number of people you are working with).
  • Determine the end location of your hunt
  • Where you want the hunt to take place? In your building, on your floor, or out on the streets
  • Think of whether you want to include any props within your hunt: e.g.: camera for your team to take photos during the hunt

Let’s give an example of how the hunt can work:

Clue: What year was the company founded? Hint: you may find this on a plaque on the outside of our building – respond with the answer

Answer: 2005

Clue: Great job! Now, go to our favorite coffee shop that we order coffee from for team meetings and take a team photo with the server. Reply with “done” when complete.

Answer: Done

Clue: Perfect. Head on over to the building where most of our town hall meetings take place and respond with the animal that appears outside the door.

Answer: Bull

Clue: Great! Now go on inside the building and find the stationary store. Purchase the cheapest possible item you can inside the store and respond with “done” when complete.

Answer: Done

Clue: Head back to the Thursday night pub that is a favorite of our department. First one back wins the prize, and gets first dibs on the appetizers! :)

 

Team building activities are an important part of any organization:

  • They help your department members get to know each other and have a fun time outside of a work setting to ensure morale is kept up
  • They let the department reward the time and effort the team puts into working with the company, and that you want to show them how much you appreciate their hard work

Scavenger hunts are the perfect team building exercise because it allows individuals within a team to work together to find out the answer to the next clue and build some overall team spirit. Use TextClues for your next scavenger hunt, and we can guarantee you that this will make scavenger hunts such a breeze for your company, and enjoyable for the employees, that you will be coming back each year for more!

Nature Scavenger Hunt

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Summer is almost here and it’s time to start getting the kids out of the house. Get them running around smiling with a nature scavenger hunt. Not only will the enjoy the sun and fresh air outside but they might end up learning something too.

This type of scavenger hunt is also really easy to make. You just need to think of a list of items that you kids can run around and collect. You can change the difficulty of the list depending on how much your kids know. Start simple with items like: a leaf, a stick, bark and a stone. If they know a little bit more you can list things like: maple leaf, oak leaf, birch bark, three leaf clover and acorns.

Creating a TextClues scavenger hunt can make it more fun than just a simple list. Sending clues to your kids via text messages will get them excited but adding a little bit of story will make it even better. Tell your kids that the government need some explorers to find samples of the local wildlife. Then you can create something like this:

Clue: I’m glad we found an explorer that can help us! Are you ready to go out and find samples of everything we need?

Answer: yes, ya

Clue: Alright perfect! We need you to find a leaf from an Oak tree. Let me know when you have found it.

Answer: Found it, Got it

Clue: Great, next wee need to see if you can find us a three leaf clover. Keep an eye out for a luck four leaf clover while you look . Let me know when you found it.

Answer: found it, got it

Clue: Last but not least see if you can find an acorn. Let me know when you’ve found the last item.

Answer: found it, got it

Clue: Congratulations! You found everything, now bring it home and show your parents.

Have a look at our demo and see how easy it is to make a text message scavenger hunt. Happy hunting!

Trivia Night

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You’re holding a trivia night with numerous people, however there are always a few challenges surrounding it.
1) If there are teams, and you are calling out the question, and the team that raises their hand first gets to answer, what do you do if multiple people raise their hand to answer the question first? Who gets to answer first?
2) If you are making individuals write out their answers individually to the questions, this requires time to collect team answers and mark the answers which wastes the time overall of people taking part in trivia night

Why not use a quick and easy program like TextClues to go through trivia night? TextClues is a text-message based program that can run on any mobile phone, so anybody with a cell phone can participate on the fun during Trivia Night :) With TextClues, you can have all of the questions and answers set up via the TextClues website. All *you* will need to do as the host is grab the cell phone numbers of participating individuals and away you go!

The best way to make this work is to have a few different rounds. One round can be trivia questions, another round can be “Name that song”, where you play a clip of a song and individuals need to figure out the title of the song. You can also use the Real-Time Dashboard on the website to determine who entered in the correct answers at the end of Trivia Night, if points are given based on the team with the most correct answers.

Let’s show you how this can be done. I’m using the word “pass” as an alternate answer to each question, so if the team does not know the answer to a question, they can type “pass” and  still continue on with trivia night

Question: Welcome to Trivia Night. Here is your first question. In what year did the War of 1812 end?
Answer: 1815, pass
Question: What was the name of the first Beatle’s album?
Answer: Anthology, pass

<song portion of trivia night>
Host: Now, we will play a clip of each song and you must type in the correct title

Question: Name song 1 <play clip of a song>
Answer: Sexy back
Question: Name song 2 <play clip of a song>
Answer: Hey Jude

At the end of it all, you can go through the answers with the crowd, while also looking at the Real-Time dashboard to see who got the most questions right.  Pretty easy to set up right? :) Try out TextClues for your next trivia night, and you won’t want to stop using it for future nights because we make it *that* easy!

Create Your Own Text Message Quiz!

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What if I told you that TextClues can act as a tool to learn languages, facts or any subject that interests you? Well people are constantly coming up with new and interesting ways of using the service to their benefit, not always focusing on scavenger hunts.

One of the most interesting is to take personal quizzes. This is great when your a studying a subject or learning something new. You can write out a list of questions, along with the answers, that you should know on the subject you’re studying. Then you can schedule a mobile “quiz” sometime next week or in a few days. This way the test may be somewhat unexpected and you likely won’t have your materials with you.

Later you will be able to go back into your TextClues account and see how you did. If you needed a few guesses for some of the questions maybe those are the areas that you should be focusing on. It’s a great way to assess how much you’ve learned and it’s easy to do anywhere. You can quickly answer a few questions on the bus or while you’re riding the elevator.

If you want to know more about the TextClues service check out some info here or try our free demo.

And don’t forget to share with us how you use TextClues!

Special Mother’s Day Treasure Hunt

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Mother’s day is coming up in a few days. Here’s an example of a text message scavenger hunt you could send her on that special day.

Clue: Hey Mom, Happy Mother’s Day! Ready for your scavenger hunt? Reply ‘yes’ to this textMother's Day Kiss

Answer: Yes

Clue: How many pounds did I weigh when I was born?

Answer: 8

Clue: Good you remembered :) What’s your favorite restaurant?

Answer: The Keg

Clue: That’s where we’re taking you tonight! What’s on the picture in the family room?

Answer: Cottage, The Cottage

Clue: Remember all the good times we had there with grandma? What bird swam in the lake and made a call in the morning?

Answer: Loon

Clue: Another bird question :) What colorful bird do we always see eating at the bird feeder in the backyard?

Answer: Red Cardinal

Clue: Okay go look under the couch for a surprise. Reply ‘found’ when you find it

Answer: Found

Clue: Hope you like the chocolates! Come give me a hug and text back what what I say

Answer: I love youMother's Day Flowers

Clue: Go down to the basement. What’s hidden by the freezer?

Answer: Flowers

Clue:  Those should look good in the kitchen. Head to the dining room and look at the pictures. What sunny place did we go last year?

Answer: Mexico

Winning Message: That was such a great trip. Now go upstairs. There’s one last surprise waiting for you under your bed!

If you want to create your own text message hunt try our free demo.