I buried a wooden ship in the sand at the beach when my little boy was 5 years old.
We were digging sand castles when "he found it".
Back at the house when his grandfather was having a closer look at the ship, grandad "discovered" an old map and little key inside the ship - strange we hadn't noticed it earlier.
The map had a big X marked on it - also down at the beach near a big cave. I happened to know just that area....
So we went down there and dug in the sand and found a wooden treasure box wrapped in a metal chain and padlocked. When my little boy tried the key in the lock.... it fit!
Inside the box was overflowing with jewellery and coins and weird little trinkets. He had discovered buried treasure!
In fact I had bought the wooden ship, and the wooden jewellery box from the local opportunity shop and also bought $5 worth of shiny junk jewellery and old overseas coins and trinkets and filled it up. I then bought a chain and padlock and wrapped it up and buried it.
He's 11 years old now and still doesn't know the true story. Credit is due to my friend who did this first - he buried a pouch in the sand for his kids to find - I just expanded on the idea with the ship and the map and the treasure box, chains and padlock etc.
We were digging sand castles when "he found it".
Back at the house when his grandfather was having a closer look at the ship, grandad "discovered" an old map and little key inside the ship - strange we hadn't noticed it earlier.
The map had a big X marked on it - also down at the beach near a big cave. I happened to know just that area....
So we went down there and dug in the sand and found a wooden treasure box wrapped in a metal chain and padlocked. When my little boy tried the key in the lock.... it fit!
Inside the box was overflowing with jewellery and coins and weird little trinkets. He had discovered buried treasure!
In fact I had bought the wooden ship, and the wooden jewellery box from the local opportunity shop and also bought $5 worth of shiny junk jewellery and old overseas coins and trinkets and filled it up. I then bought a chain and padlock and wrapped it up and buried it.
He's 11 years old now and still doesn't know the true story. Credit is due to my friend who did this first - he buried a pouch in the sand for his kids to find - I just expanded on the idea with the ship and the map and the treasure box, chains and padlock etc.