Every night, my daughter asks for her favourite book: We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. The premise of this classic is simple: an ordinary family who set out (woefully unprepared and on a foolhardy mission, the safety officer inside me cries) on an adventure to track down a bear. It’s got everything: adversity, excitement and mild peril, but ends with a comforting snuggle back in bed. Treasure hunts are a familiar trope of children’s literature – from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island to The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll and any Enid Blyton story – simply because children love the thrill of the hunt – be it in stories or, even more magically, in real life. Whether it’s for bears, or more usually treasure of some kind, what’s incredibly useful is that, when you need to entertain a small person, with a little imagination, you can dress almost anything up as a hunt for fossils, birds, clues or historical facts. “Treasure trails are an easy way to get an eight-year-old to walk a couple of miles without a complaint,” agrees Aaron Hutchens from the company Treasure Trails. “Or for older children, it can be a great way to get them to put down their phones for a while, if they’re engrossed in hunting for clues. Lots of our customers say that it’s one of the only things that they’ve been able to do as a whole family; it’s one of the magical things about it.” This half term there are plenty of historical houses, sites of interest and savvy games companies across the UK that are putting on hunts of one kind or another to help entertain the children (that secretly you’ll probably enjoy at least as much as they do). From fossil hunts in Dorset to spy-tracking in Manchester, bug hunting in Berkshire to history hounds in Bath, there are a variety of ways to explore and keep everyone’s spirits high. For older children and teens, geocaching is a way to entice them to move around, using prompts on GPS devices, or phones, to move to the next location and find virtual treasure or cache. The National Trust and the British Museum are among the organisations that have cleverly dressed up what they’ve already got on offer – countryside or centuries’ worth of treasure – and repackaged it for tech-hungry teens. But treasure – like beauty – is in the eye of the beholder. If you’re stuck inside on a wet day, you can always try to recreate your own. Pinterest has lots of suggestions about how to create a treasure hunt at home. I even saw a mum create a bingo-style card for her son to take around the supermarket – he had to find the treasure and get it in the trolley. Genius. Failing that, there are always stories; the best of which are the ones that end up with everyone tucked up in bed, dreaming of adventures. Jessica Salter Fossil hunting, Dorset A qualified professional geologist leads family tours or group trips on fossil-hunting adventures around Charmouth, along the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, advising on the best places to look for fossils and explaining any finds. Private family tours, three hours for £100; or join others for a two-hour walk for £5 each (children under four free). Well-behaved dogs welcome; fossilwalks.com Museum explorers, London The British Museum has created a fun iPad-based challenge for older teens to learn about the stories in the museum, while working in teams and competing against others to hunt for clues, solve cryptic riddles, and decipher codes to collect points and unlock the next level. Tomorrow and Feb 22, booking required. Individual or teams up to four people, for teens aged 14-18; britishmuseum.org Treasure trails, nationwide Treasure Trails offers downloadable self-guided themed walks suitable for families, where you have to solve clues along the way, complete missions like a secret agent or find buried treasure. There are more than 1,200 around the UK, but favourites include Manchester Castlefield, Edinburgh Old Town and Cambridge Central. Suitable for all ages; £9.99; treasuretrails.co.uk History hunt at the Tower of London Writer Sally Peck enrols some young history lovers in knight school Sir Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, and his squire, Roger, were gazing out on our gang of unlikely students, ranging in age from four to 10 or so, setting the parameters of our hunt. In an unseasonably sunny patch of the south lawn of the Tower of London last week, we were going on a quest: for knowledge. Bringing history alive for the youngest visitors to Britain’s most popular historic attraction can be a challenge. But corral them into the usually off-limits grassy enclosure and furnish them with (foam) swords, and you’re off to the races. This quest for a deeper understanding of the code of chivalry gave my three trainee knights – Antonia, eight, Henry, six, and Teddy, four – a sense of purpose. In the shadow of the White Tower, the children took their own stabs at projecting terror. It was, we were told, 1471, the height of the Wars of the Roses. The Houses of York and Lancaster were battling it out for the throne of England. Did we have the necessary attributes to make the warrior grade? We began this assessment with manners. “Don’t you all serve your parents food at the table?” bellowed Roger – a notion met with giggles from his pupils – before instructing them on how to bow properly to Sir Anthony. These tutors, historical interpreters from a group called Past Pleasures, deliver their facts with a generous helping of silliness. As we queued to practise our jousting by running with a rubber-ended pole at the quintain, Sir Anthony boasted “I am the best jouster in Europe,” before running at the target and demonstrating what happens if you stop: the quintain hits the back of your head as it revolves, knocking you out. Sir Anthony then showed us the only way to relieve the weight of his 20 kilos of armour: to squat down in a position usually reserved for outdoor latrines. Cue plenty of toilet humour, but also a window into the brutal reality of being a knight; Henry’s polyester chain-mail hood, he noted, allows for a nimbler step than Sir Anthony’s gear. Having put squats in the minds of their small charges, Sir Anthony and Roger spurred the sword-wielding children into action. “You could blow over in the wind!” they admonished the children, encouraging them to bend their knees and look lively. “Now, war face on!” cried the squire, whose battle expression recalled an angry Noh mask. “Cut your enemy! Get him in the belly. Cut it open!” This sort of violent call to arms set the stage in a way that Teddy found especially entertaining, but it also gave context to our later tour of the site. Dismissed from knight school, we practised our swordplay techniques around the grounds, weaving in and out of more peaceable visitors. Knight school is included in the price of admission to the Tower. Alongside the outdoor swordplay, there are drop-in activities such as designing your own battle banner or family crest, and building a catapult that works remarkably well from a few ice-lolly sticks and elastic bands. Knight School runs today until Feb 23 and activities take place between 11am and 4pm each day; hrp.org.uk/towerof london Archeological adventurers, York Children become trainee “diggers” at Dig in York, where they can grab a trowel and explore four special indoor excavation pits, based on real-life digs and filled with replica Roman, Viking, medieval and Victorian artefacts from 2000 years of York’s history. Tours last one hour, pre-booking recommended. Adults from £7, children (3-16) from £6.50; digyork.com Letterbox finders, Isle of Lundy Lundy Letterboxing is a fun way to encourage children to explore Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel; there are 27 letterboxes that you have to find using clues, which each contain a rubber stamp, including the elusive and movable “Lundy Bunny” stamp. Collect all the stamps while enjoying fine views, plus the odd puffin. Suitable for all ages; clues cost £7.99; landmarktrust.org.uk Ghost hunting, York With his frock-coat, top hat and Gladstone bag, the Victorian guide appears at half-past seven at the Shambles, a street that dates back to medieval times, and leads a tour of ghost hunters through York’s history. Rated “PG”. £7.50 for adults, £5 for accompanied under-18s; ghosthunt.co.uk Bug hunting, nationwide Writer Maria Lally and her two daughters roll up their sleeves in the woods In previous half terms I’ve made the mistake of filling the week with trips to London, the cinema, Pizza Express and local soft play centres, and before I know it I’ve spent the equivalent of a last-minute week in Greece. As a try out for this half term we ventured to our local woods for a bug hunt. I printed off a bug hunt guide from ZSL London Zoo, including a checklist of bugs for the girls to look for, and we set off with Tupperware containers and spoons. “Bug hunting, which we offer as part of our schools sessions, is a great activity for families wanting to get closer to nature and learn about the amazing wildlife right on their doorstep,” Dave Clarke, ZSL’s head of invertebrates, told me. And he was right. My girls – Sophia, nine, and Rosie, six – loved gently lifting pieces of damp bark on fallen logs to see what was lurking underneath. They collected centipedes, millipedes and tiny slugs to put in their containers. We found spiders’ webs nestled in tree hollows and, while they usually squeal at spiders at home, they bravely peered at them before ticking them off their list. We ventured deeper into the woods and looked under rocks and around tree stumps to look for worms and woodlouse, and we spotted a squirrel. Their list also contained wasps, butterflies and ladybirds, and they’ve made me promise to organise another hunt in the summer so we can tick those off their list. Like parents everywhere, I constantly hear the cry, “I’m bored!” and battle to get my children away from screens. But here, in a cold, wet and muddy wood, they were about as happy as I’ve ever seen them. Creature treatments, London Junior animal lovers can dress up in white coats and role play as zoo vets at ZSL London Zoo, helping the experts examine, x-ray, diagnose and “treat” toy animals in the zoo’s specially-recreated zoo vet clinics. Today until Feb 23. Included in ZSL entry price; peak prices adult from £31.50; child from £20.47; zsl.org Colour trails, Cornwall Little visitors to the Eden Project over half term will be given instructions on how to follow the living colour trail around the biomes, pointing out flowers in bloom along the way. Answers to questions will be hidden around the plants, with eight points to find. There will be arts and crafts events tying into the colour theme. Adult from £26, children from £13.50 (under-fours free), family from £67; edenproject.com Maze explorers, Cliveden, Bucks The maze at Cliveden in Buckinghamshire is based on one that was constructed for the 1st Viscount Astor in 1894 and has more than 500m of paths winding among 2m-high yew hedges, covering approximately a third of an acre in all. Challenge your little ones to crack Lord Astor’s secret route and get to the middle of the maze. Adults £16, children £9; nationaltrust.org.uk Geocaching, worldwide Writer Anna Moore takes her family on a tech-hunt On May 2 2000, the US government made GPS available worldwide, and the following day, a guy in Oregon decided to try it out. He placed a bucket in his local woods, filled it with a logbook and pencil, videos, books, a can of beans and a slingshot, noted the coordinates with a GPS unit then went online and invited others to find it. Those who did logged who they were and where they’d come from, took something from the bucket and replaced it with something else. It quickly caught on. Someone hides a container – now called a geocache – and notes the coordinates for others to locate. There are now more than three million geocaches hidden in 191 countries on all seven continents. One Sunday, we turned a typical day in Greenwich – me, my husband, 13-year-old Orla and the dog – into a hunt. The easy part is downloading the app – and as soon as you do, you see that you’re surrounded by geocaches. Click on your nearest one and the geocache has a name – for example, “Gates of Greenwich” – and three ratings, which indicate: difficulty (how hard it is to find); terrain (if terrain has a five rating, you might need a rope or a dinghy); and size. It quickly becomes apparent that in order to conceal something in a crowded spot like Greenwich, the geocache is likely to be extremely small, heavily disguised and hidden by an evil genius. If you can’t find it once you’ve navigated to the spot, you can click on a hint to receive a cryptic clue like “black on black” or “box clever” that may not help much anyway… Orla – like any 13-year-old – is at home with the technology and finds no difficulty reaching the spots. Then we wander around searching. Each one found is a mini-thrill. In London, there are no buckets of goodies, just containers holding paper with details of all finders. Orla adds her username to the log and records each find on her app. Some geocaches are containers, some are “virtual”, and for hardcore fans, there are “puzzle caches” where you have to solve puzzles. In Greenwich, we find a strange secret world. I ask Orla if she’d do it again. “It would make a family walk more interesting,” she concedes – and then points out that there’s a geocache hidden in the park at the top of our road. She’s says she’s going to find them – so I’m wandering up there this afternoon first… geocaching.com; nationaltrust.org.uk/geocaching Knightly quest, East Sussex Fine chivalrous tales and trails at Battle Abbey, which was built on the spot where the armies of King Harold and William the Conqueror clashed at the 1066 Battle of Hastings. Over half term there will be trails that lead you around the ruins, with hands-on activities for children, along with vivid storytelling sessions to help set the scene. Today until Feb 23, adult £12.30, child £7.40, family £32; english-heritage.org.uk Nature detectives, nationwide The Woodland Trust has put together a free, downloadable scavenger hunt for young children that encourages their inner curiosity and magpie tendencies. They’re encouraged to collect items en route, and then take them home for future craft projects. Free print-at-home fact sheet; naturedetectives.woodlandtrust.org.uk Gruffalo trails, Nationwide Jessica Salter hits the trail with her toddler How do you get a three-year-old to go for a walk in the deep dark wood? You tell her we’re going to meet the Gruffalo, the wildly popular (among the under-fives) Julia Donaldson character. Last Saturday, before Storm Ciara hit, I lured my daughter Agnes to Thorndon Country Park in Essex with the promise of a trail (and perhaps a Gruffalo-shaped biscuit). We bought the map from the gift shop and followed the muddy trail through the dappled wood with other tiny Gruffalo hunters. In between spotting the perfectly spaced wooden statues (along with the main man, there’s also a fox, snake, owl and the Gruffalo’s Child, which all the toddlers queued up to have their photos taken with or hug), there are logs to clamber on, bridges to stomp across and dens to explore. With all the stop-starting, we took nearly two hours, before we headed back to the café to claim our victorious rewards (coffee for me; a glass of milk for her). We headed home two tired adventure seekers, full of tales of our adventurous day out. Free (optional map 50p), no booking required. Our trail was at Thorndon Country Park essexwt.org.uk; for more nationwide, forestryengland.uk/gruffalo Scavenger walks, Norfolk Holkham Estate is putting on nature scavenger hunts around part of its 25,000-acre property for half term, where kids can learn about specialist species that inhabit the reserve as they trek through the salt marshes, beach and sand dunes. Today until Feb 23, adult £5, child (age 2-16) £2.50, family (two adults and three children) £13.50; holkham.co.uk Wildlife spotters, Northumberland Cragside in Northumberland has over 1,000 acres, 40 miles of footpaths, four lakes and gardens filled with wildlife. The wildlife hide is the perfect place to spot birds and small mammals, including rare red squirrels. Adults from £8.50, children from £4.25; nationaltrust.org.uk Spycraft, Kent There is hands-on training in disguise, code-cracking and clues at Dover Castle. Junior detectives will learn how to find clues, crack code words and uncover hidden secrets as they explore around the castle. Today until Feb 23; £20.90 adult, £12.50 child, £54.30 family (two adults and three children); english-heritage.org.uk Fairy trail, South Yorks For those who like trails sprinkled with fairy dust, the trail around Brodsworth Hall will appeal: a trail sheet leads you around the gardens, looking for sprites hiding in trees and bushes, including tiny fairy villages. Today until Feb 23, £9.20 adult, £5.50 child; english-heritage.org.uk Eco explorers, nationwide Plastic Patrol offers free paddleboarding lessons (kit provided), in return for scouring river and canal banks for discarded plastic. If you can’t make a meet-up, download the app, and record your “treasure”. Official clean-ups for over-16s only, but anyone can use the app: plasticpatrol.co.uk