How to Do an Easter Egg Hunt for Toddlers
Any family with kids knows that Easter Sunday mornings are everything but calm. When the day starts, the young ones are eager to find all the hidden Easter eggs around the house. But sometimes you spend long time hiding the eggs and your children find them in less than five minutes. The Easter egg hunt is a fun activity that aims to keep children entertained, but to do so it is important to make the hunt interesting and original, so it is harder for them to find the eggs.
Here at OneHowTo we give you some ideas and explain you how to do an Easter egg hunt for toddlers so they enjoy it at the maximum level. You can adapt the level of difficulty according to your kid's age so it's not too difficult or too easy for them. Try these tricks this year and you'll see how your kids are going to have the greatest Easter Sunday morning ever!
Paint the eggs in different colours and assign one to each child
Sometimes during egg hunts it can happen that older children find more eggs than the younger ones, and this can lead to disputes and quarrels that will turn what was a happy morning into a mess. To avoid this from happening, you can paint the eggs in different colours and assign one colour to each child. This way you'll make sure that all children get the same amount of eggs by the end of the hunt, making it fair. If the eggs you're using are painted in patterns and many colours, you can add a distinctive trait to each one of them, like for instance mark some with a red spot or a red triangle. Then, assign one mark to each child, so they can only collect the eggs that they've been told to.
A variation of this is giving every child a list of what they need to find. For instance, two green eggs, four red eggs and one blue egg. This way they'll have more variation of colours in their basket. Make sure that all the kids get the equal amount of eggs.
Convert the hunt into an egg puzzle
Similar to assigning different colours to each child you can hide the eggs and mark them as if they were puzzle pieces. This may work with slightly older children, but you can adapt the level of the puzzle to the age of your kids.
One idea for an egg puzzle would be to paint a letter in every egg. Then you can ask your children to only collect the eggs that are painted with a letter from their name, so at the end of the hunt they'll have eggs with letters that will read their names. If you want to hide more eggs you can also give them a list of words that they have to write using the eggs they find with the printed letters.
If your kids are a little older you can attach a puzzle piece with every egg and they can only collect the eggs that have a piece that matches the first one.
Set boundaries to the hunt
It is usual for kids to get too involved in the hunt and forget about everything else. They might end up leaving the house and crossing the road to see if there are any eggs hidden in the front neighbour's garden. To avoid this, let your children know where the boundaries for the hunt are. You can tell them not to leave the house or to not cross the garden fence.
Give it a twist: make the egg hunt at dusk
Easter egg hunts are usually made in the morning, but why not adding a bit twist and doing it at dusk? If you choose to do it at dusk, we recommend you to do it on the previous day, i.e. Saturday evening. You can also do it on Sunday, but be aware that your kids are going to be restless throughout the day waiting for the big moment.
If you decide to do the egg hunt at dusk provide your children with flashlights. It won't be completely dark outside but your children will feel as if they were in an adventure. If you're doing the hunt inside the house, don't switch on any lights.
Make it an egg treasure hunt
If your kids like riddles and mystery, you can convert the egg hunt into a treasure hunt. Depending on your kids' age you can make it more or less difficult.
For younger children:
- You can draw a map of the house and garden and mark some spots that might contain eggs. Don't make the map too realistic or mark the eggs at the specific spot, or it would be too easy to find them. Remember that you need to keep them entertained for some time.
- Make bunny footprints around the house. Spread some talcuum powder on the floor and make some footprints with your fingers. Create the footprints next to where the eggs are, so your children can follow them.
For older children:
- Give the first egg to your children with a riddle they need to solve in order to get to the next egg.
- Instead of a riddle, you can give visual clues. If the egg is inside a drawer, you could maybe draw a shirt or something else, so your children would need to discover what the clue means.
Fill the eggs with something more than chocolate
If you're using plastic eggs, these need to be filled with treats, usually chocolate. However, you surely don't want your children to be eating chocolate all day long, so you can add other things inside the eggs. Fill two or three eggs with chocolate and put something else in the others, such as money or movie tickets. You can also create vouchers for them to spend throughout the week and include these inside the eggs. These vouchers can be an extra dessert, 30 minutes more watching TV... get creative!
Following these tips you can organise an Easter egg hunt that your children will surely enjoy. Just add a little twist and you'll see the smile on their happy faces.
If you want to read similar articles to How to Do an Easter Egg Hunt for Toddlers, we recommend you visit our Festivities & Celebrations category.
- Write a list of the places where you've hidden the eggs. This way you'll avoid finding missed eggs months later with all the chocolate melted on the inside.
- Supervise your children at all times. Even if you've told them they can't leave the house they might get lost in the excitement and forget about the boundaries of the hunt.
