Setting up a treasure hunt includes the following: The planner gathers all the suppliers and records where all the areas that will have hidden treasures. The treasure is hidden after which the planner writes down the clues. Description of all the areas should be done while the planner is at each spot where the treasure is hidden to ensure accurate descriptions. Use of rhyming riddles that are not so hard will help the children enjoy coming up with solutions. Clues that are too hard for them will make the hunt difficult and the children will lose morale. Writing great clues involves making the hunt challenging though not impossible a factor greatly determined by the particular age group it is being set up for.

The hidden clues could be partly visible and those buried should not be too deep to need use of tools in digging them up. Children do not have an elevated eye level so the clues should be hidden in areas or places, where kids are likely to spot and reach. Younger children may require the paper clues to be partly exposed. Some of the ideal areas of hiding clues include mailbox, sandbox, under welcome mats or rocks. Some clues could be hidden indoors and others outdoors to make it more interesting.

The king elephant starts the game by raising his/her signal and then the signal of another animal player. The chosen player makes a signal of their own animal as well as that of another animal. The play goes on with these sorts of interchanges until one player makes a mistake. This player becomes the last person in the play circle while the rest of the players move up.

The purpose of the game is for each player to try and become the king elephant. The king elephant however, can only be overthrown by a mistake being committed and the assumption of the identity by a new king elephant. From here it is easy to depose the rest of the king elephants, since it is easy for them to confuse their previous animal signals with the new elephants signal.

It is a good indoor party game that can be played by between eight to fifteen players. It does not demand any special props. Since it is a rhythm game players need to stay on beat and rise quickly when called to. The rhythm is in a 1-2-3-4 pattern where 1 is a pat to the knee, 2 a clap and 2 and 4 the right and left thumbs or signals. So starting from the king elephant all other players repeat the four patterns.

Here are some people enjoying a game of King Elephant:

When playing the game, the blind man wears a blindfold while standing at the center of the room or area of play and spins around five times to be disoriented. All other players can move around and hide while the ‘blind man’ spins or they could ask him or her to count to a hundred so that they can hide. As soon as the 5th spin is finished or the ‘blind man’ stops counting, all other players should stop and stay in their positions until the end of the game. The ‘It’ player then yells out ‘blind man’s’ and all other players respond ‘bluff’ to his call. He uses these verbal clues to locate the rest of the players in the game. Once another player is tagged, he or she becomes the ‘It’.

There are several different versions to the game. In one version, there are no verbal clues and the ‘It’ player walks around feeling for the players. The hiders’ feet must remain in the same position but they are free to move other body parts to keep from being tagged. The most challenging part is for the ‘hiders’ is to avoid giggling. In another version, once a player is tagged by the ‘It’ they are out of the game and this goes on until all the players are out of the game. In the next round, either the first or last player to be tagged becomes the ‘It’. There are several other versions and one could customize the game to make it more interesting or suitable for their playing environment.