Saturday, November 29, 2008

Letterboxing with kids - fun for the whole family!

The past two years my sons and I have done letterboxing while on Jekyll Island for Thanksgiving. The fun thing about letterboxing is that it gets your family outdoors experiencing nature while searching for a hidden letterbox.

The sport of letterboxing involves following clues to find a hidden box which generally has a special stamp. Generally the stamp has been created by the person/people who hid the box. When the box is found, the special stamp can be stamped in your journal to keep track of all the letterboxes you have found. I bought my sons a small photo album for letterboxing which we use with 4 X 6 index cards. We stamp the index card, label the stamp based on the clue title, the location, and then write the date. The box also generally has a small log in which you stamp your own special stamp and record your names. We purchased our "family stamp" from Michaels.

You can find a mulititude of letterboxing clues at http://www.letterboxing.org for locations across the United States. This would make a great Christmas gift for families - you could make up a kit with an album/journal, a compass, and inkpads to get them started as well as some clues printed off for their area.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post Robin. We've never done this. I think my kids would just love it. Do you take along your own stamp pad? And the kit you talk about, is that for taking along? or is it for creating their own box to hide? (or both?) Anyway, i think this is great. I am going to check this out further.

Bobby and Jennifer said...

Thats pretty neat. Kind of a different take on a treasure hunt. I am sure my boys and girls would love this. I enjoy your blog.

Anonymous said...

I love letterboxing. We've only done it once, but it was fun and exciting. We had to be careful that nobody saw us, so there was an air of mystery and adventure.

I'll have to check into what's around here.

Love,
Penney