Cool Teenage Party Idea: Picture Scavenger Hunt

Anna turned 15 over the weekend and invited 21 girls over for a sleepover. At one point in the night, Rob looked at me and said, "I could do this once a month."  Keep in mind he is an extrovert and has chosen to work with school age kids every day for the past 20 or so years. Me on the other hand, I am still recovering. But it was fun and so successful. So much so that I want to share some of the activities we did just in case you find yourself with a house full of tweens or teenagers. I will share one idea below and others in weeks coming.


My goal for the party was to keep these teenage girls engaged and entertained so that there was no room for drama, cliques, or gossip. I also wanted them to interact with each other instead of tweeting and texting. Yes, I am even intentional when it comes to my kids' bday parties.

I had activities planned from 5pm to 3am. And no the girls did not bawk at that. . they LOVED it. They did say it was a little different than the normal sleepover they have been to. But they also said that the weekend went by so fast for them and the weekend was so fun. And they did post pictures of the games and crafts we did on Facebook and Instagram. .so that says something right there, eh? 

One activity we did was a Picture Scavenger Hunt. We divided the girls into groups of 4 or 5 and walked up to the nearby park. Once at the park, the girls had to take pictures of the items on the list (a list Rob and I had made up that Anna had not seen). Taking pictures was not a problem because there was a least one girl in each group that came with their iphone, ipod, etc (Who am I kidding? All 21 had some electronic device on them that took pictures).  Each item was given a point value. The group with the most points won.
Some items on the list were:

A team member dressed up as a superhero

The entire team in a bathroom stall (not handicapped). Iphone photos upload small on my blog.

 The entire team off the ground at the same time

A team member with a tooth blacked out

The entire team picking up trash

The number 15 (for Anna's birthday!)

All but one team member with coins over their eyes. These scavenger hunt picture will make great scrapbook pages.

A team member dancing with a stranger. Is that dancing?

We gave the girls 45 min. We then walked back to our house for pizza and while they were eating dinner, they emailed me their pictures from the scavenger hunt. And I put them all in a folder for a slideshow. After dinner, we watched the scavenger hunt slideshow, laughed and laughed, and tallied up the points for each team. Here are the girls watching the slideshow out on the deck. We hung up a sheet and borrowed a projector. So much more fun than just viewing them on the laptop or tv.

This is so not an original idea. Just google "picture scavenger hunt list" and all kinds of ideas will pop up, but if you want to use the list we used for Anna's bday, click here and you will be able to print it out. A picture scavenger hunt is a perfect tween/teenage party idea. Gets the kids interacting. Gets them laughing and having fun. Gets them moving and outside. Takes up a good chunk of time. And the kids think its cool.

For more home birthday party ideas, check out Tip Junkie's Linky Party.