Great ideas for an Easter egg hunt

A great Easter Egg hunt can be simply hiding a load of eggs for the children to find. But with a bit of creativity you can do enhance your kids egg hunt this year to make it the most special and memorable ever!

Here are some ideas to help you create the best Easter egg hunt for your kids this year…..

The Eggs –  

 Of course chocolate eggs are the obvious choice but you could choose to not use chocolate. Or you could add in other items with your eggs. You can use plastic eggs which are filled with small toys, chicks or sweets  or with clues that correspond to bigger prizes such as stuffed toys. Easter books, chocolate bunnies or certificates. Or you could hard boil real eggs and decorate them or even better get the kids to decorate them before Easter day comes!

 

Here are 11 brilliant ideas for how to run your best fun egg hunt!!

 

1/ Simple Easter Egg Treasure Hunt with riddles 

This can be done either indoors or outdoors or a combination. Simply write out clues with each hidden location leading them to the next. It’s a good idea to number the clues so they don’t skip one! At the end, have an Easter basket filled with eggs and treats waiting for them!

 

If you are not good with riddles or creating clues or you would like the Easter Bunny himself to lead your kids egg hunt then see this interactive egg hunt pack with videos and riddles from the Easter Bunny himself…

2/ The Golden Easter Egg:

Paint an egg gold or get a gold egg and put some money or a main prize in it. This can make the hunt even more exciting and who will find the golden Easter egg first?

3/ Bowling with Eggs:

Hard boil a load of eggs and then paint them different colours. Have one egg which is white. Roll the white egg into the centre of a room and take it in turns to see who can roll their coloured egg closest to the white egg.

 

 4/ Activity Easter egg hunt

Set up different activity posts around the garden or park. At each post, the children will need to complete a physical challenge before they start searching for more eggs. You can have an adult at each post setting the activity and judging that they have done it appropriately. They can be given an egg for their efforts each time. They could also receive an egg sticker! Activities could include running up and down a path or doing a silly dance, star jumps, and egg and spoon race, skipping with a rope, throwing a ball into a hoop or a mini obstacle course.

5/ Pirate treasure hunt

Why not mix things up a bit with some different themes. A pirate treasure hunt means you can make a treasure map which the children have to follow to search out their chocolate eggs, with the final ‘X’ marking the spot……

6/  Dinosaur treasure hunt

Another theme which is great at Easter is hiding dino eggs. You can teach children to be dino rangers, give them binocolors, toy compasses and teach them to walk like dinosaurs. To do an awesome dinosaur themed treasure hunt, see The Dino Ranger Treasure Hunt here which includes Ron the Ranger leading the children in their ranger hunting skills and even teaching them The Dino Rap song! 

 

7/ Fancy dress Easter egg hunt

Place different dressing up items around the garden for the children to find and put on. They don’t need to be expensive, home-made bunny ears, a selection of hats, cotton wool tails, glasses, bags and gloves are all easy to make and great fun. 

At the end, each bunny wins a treat for their efforts.

8/ Easter egg hunt with a colour code

Assign each child a different colour. Wrap the eggs in different coloured tissue paper (or use foiled wrapped chocolate eggs in different colours) and hide around the space. The children must only collect eggs of their colour. This is great for younger children who can’t read yet but know their colours! 

9/ Easter egg hunt with bunny vouchers

Instead of chocolate treats, put little slips of paper inside plastic eggs which contain vouchers for activities for the child to claim over the coming weeks. These tokens can be for activities such as ‘watch a movie together with popcorn’, ‘have a teddy bear picnic’, ‘go to the park’ or ‘go out for cake with mummy’.

10/ Follow the Easter rope

Have a very long length of string or rope and at various points along it tie an Easter egg. The drape it around the space you are using (indoors or out) this may include putting through windows, through bushes and across fences.  The children have to use the strong to help them follow to the next egg! Each child then gets the end of one of the pieces of string and they have to follow it to find their egg.

11/ Easter bingo

Give each child a ‘bingo sheet’ marked with things you find at Easter, for example, spring flowers like daffodils, toy chicks or lambs, hot cross buns or religious items. Hide these items around the hunt space (garden, house or park). Challenge the children to find as many as they can and mark them off on their sheet when they have found them.The first to get a ‘full house’ wins.

Some great Easter Egg Hunt tips…..

Creating an egg hunt in a space away from the home:

Woodland areas make great hunt ground. Choose a small area of woodland and place eggs under a landmark such as a bench or a bush or tuck them into the hollow of a tree. Don’t forget to keep a list of the places where you’ve hidden your eggs!

 

A local park is also a great place to create a hunt. If you have more than one adult involved one of you can go away and set up the hunt (and guard it until your children arrive1) and the other one can bring the children along in a bit. You can even be extra kind and generous and invite other children at the park to join in! 

Large groups of children:

If you have a larger group of children, they can work in teams. Each team can have a colour, with an equal number of eggs to match. Teams hide their own clutch of eggs and then have a race to find each other’s. You could use small chocolate Easter eggs wrapped in paper to match the team’s colour. Alternatively, make your own coloured eggs using food colouring.

(Hard boil the eggs and then mix colour solutions using water, vinegar and food colouring and soaks the eggs in the colour mixtures, watching them change colour!)

You can also designate a base and ask each child to return to it once they have collected five eggs to save the same (older or faster!)  children collecting them all!They should stay there until all the children have returned before setting out again. That way you can ensure they all get the same amount of eggs.

Estimate about a dozen eggs per guest so everyone has a chance to find and collect a good amount of eggs. Have a few extra baskets on hand in case guests forget to bring their own. You could also pair the younger ones up with the older ones. Small children can be overwhelmed by older ones so it works better if they can work in teams.

 

 

 

If you are hosting the hunt for children who are a mixture of ages:

You could divide the space into two zones; one for younger kids and one for older kids.  For the younger children you can make the eggs easier to find and for the older kids they can be harder or have word based clues.

If you’re hosting a hunt for toddlers, try hanging balloons instead of eggs for easy searching!

If toddlers are in attendance make sure any toys being used and especially chicks don’t contain chocking hazards.

 

Chocolate egg alternatives –

Obviously you want the children to get a prize in return for the egg-cellent hunting! However if you don’t want to give chocolate you can give a colouring book, reading book, a toy or a treat such as a picnic?

Another good idea is to give children certificates of achievement afterward. You can print out your own or buy some.

Chocolate egg consumption rules….

Unless you want a garden/house full of hyper children it’s a good idea to put rues in place to start with about when they can eat the eggs and how many, so they have a clear understanding of how much they can eat (and children’s activities work so much better when kids know the rules) A few eggs once the hunt has finished is perfectly acceptable and the rest can be taken home for them to eat over the Easter holidays.

Remember, the hunt doesn’t end until the last egg is found, so keep a count of how many eggs you hide!

Happy hunting!!

If you want to see how to make jelly eggs go here

If you want to have your easter egg hunt hosted by the Easter Bunny himself then go here 

If you want to buy a ready made amazing dinosaur themed treasure hunt with video clues, puzzle pieces and clues Buy the Dino Ranger Treasure hunt go here