Treasure chest knotty challenge

You’ll need

Rope
Box
Treasure for the chest such as snacks, drinks or equipment for everyone’s favourite game
Washable colour pens

What knot

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Before you begin

Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Setting up the activity

Create a treasure chest by filling a box with your treats.
Tie the rope around the chest in a way that means everyone can easily tie cord to it, and eventually pull it towards them. Make sure the chest is not too heavy, so the cord is strong enough.

Practise the knots

Separate into small groups with each having a helper, such as an adult volunteer or young leader.
In each group, the helper demonstrates a familiar, simple knot and everyone practises until they’re feeling confident. Start with a simple overhand knot and practise techniques like holding the cord tightly. In each group, pairs can help each other: one can hold while the other person ties. If anyone struggles with remembering right and left, mark the ends of the cord with different coloured washable pens.
Alternatively, you could assign one knot to each helper and groups can move around from helper to helper to learn each knot.

Take the treasure chest challenge

Place the chest at one end of the space and put the lengths of paracord at the other end.
Now, it’s up to everyone to tie their cords securely together to the rope around the chest, until they’re long enough to reach the team, and the chest can be pulled to the other side of the space.
The first person runs to the chest and ties their cord onto the rope using either an overhand knot, reef knot or sheet bend. Anyone who‘s less confident can pair up with someone who is well-practised.
People can either choose the knot they want to use, or you could select a knot for them to try.
Helpers should offer hands-on help or remind people what to do.
Check each cord is secure before the next person runs to the chest to tie theirs.
Repeat the activity until everyone’s had a turn.
Once the cords form a long rope, everyone should heave the treasure across the space and open the chest together to see what rewards their hard work has brought.

Reflection

This activity is designed to develop everyone’s knot tying skills. It’s a fun way to remind them about different types of knots, why knots can be helpful and where they can be used. For example, reef knots are useful for tying a sling or bandage; a bowline can be tied to a load; a clove hitch is useful as a lashing. Everyone should think about which knot they found the most challenging. And was physically tying the knot or remembering how to tie it that was more difficult? Did they use any rhymes to help them remember?

Everyone had to be independent because they needed to decide which knots would be best for the task. How did they choose? Did they pick a knot they felt comfortable tying, or consider which are strongest and would hold best when pulled?

Everyone should congratulate the group for their hard work and think about practising the knots at home using string, wool or even a scarf.

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Active games: The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.