Today is my nephew Timothy's 24th birthday (!) so that means it's time to share my latest money gift idea. It is essentially a trivia challenge that starts with a printable gift card. It took me about 40 minutes to make, but you can spend more or less time depending on how much you want to challenge your recipient. It's a great option for someone who lives far away, as there are no shipping costs and no mailing time required.
This is what Timothy received via email:
He has already solved it and redeemed his gift card, so if you feel like figuring out the answer, go for it. The answer is below, so if you do want to solve it, do it before reading on. The full answer is at the bottom of the post.
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Trivia-Themed Money Gift Using Printable Gift Card
Start by buying a printable gift card, sent to your own email address. I used Amazon, but any gift card that you can redeem online will work. Do not buy an eGift card. Those come with a link, not a code.
Within a few minutes, you'll receive your card. You don't need to print it. Just pay attention to the code. For Amazon, the format is XXXX-XXXXXX-XXXX.
Now it's time to get started. Open up a new document. Take a screenshot of the printable gift card so that your recipient knows where to redeem it (see the Amazon smile below the 'Happy Birthday' graphic?) and put the image at the top of the document. Then type the instructions, then spaces and hyphens to match the format of the gift code. Now you're ready to write the questions.
The first 2 digits of Timothy's code were G8, so I typed "What is G8" into Google to see what came up. First was a Wikipedia article about the Group of 8 (G8) and next was an article about the Pontiac G8. Timothy is very interested in geography, so the first topic was a great choice for him. I read the article and carefully constructed a question that could only be answered with the letter-number combination of G8.
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You don't need to give clues in 2-digit sections like I did, nor do your clues need to be so challenging. For a young child, I might give the following clues to generate the same answer, G8:
1. What is the 7th letter of the alphabet?
2. How many sides does an octagon have?
You could use math equations, state abbreviations, sports players' jersey numbers, or literally anything else when designing your questions. Just be sure that there is only one possible answer. I had to be very careful how I wrote question 5-6 since there are multiple events in the Olympics with a letter-number name.
Speaking of K4, I was really frustrated that the code had K4 twice. It was hard enough writing one question for that particular combination! But the next pair, KM, couldn't be easier. If you have two letters in a row, that's the perfect chance to ask a question about a famous person with those initials.
I was hoping that UM or AW were chemical symbols that I'd forgotten about since that would have been a fun clue, but alas, no. I think my question for UM is the weakest of the bunch. I do like the one I came up with for AW though, since it fits in with Timothy's interest in geography and travel.
Happy birthday, Timothy! Two more months to figure out a money gift for Christmas. Yikes.
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You made Timothy work for it this year!
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