The big egg hunt is over…. Now what? Make your holiday eggstra-ordinary with these fun and festive Easter activities for kids of all ages. They’ll be sure to keep everyone hopping until dinner is on the table.
Egg and Spoon Race
A race of balance and coordination, this is a classic for a reason. Grab your tablespoons and some eggs (hardboiled are best but plastic ones work as well) and see who can cross the finish line first. Work together as teams in a relay format or race individually against the clock. Stuck inside? Make it egg-stra special by setting up an indoor obstacle course that participants must navigate on their way to victory.
Coloring Pages and Other Crafts
Coloring is a fun – and Zen – activity for kids and adults alike and quite popular right now. McCrea’s is offering a downloadable Easter coloring page based on its holiday caramel gift box. Get it here. Crayola also has some fun easy-to-print pages. Want to do more than just color, how about asking the kids to decorate place setting cards or baskets like these ones from Oriental Trading so they have a beautiful place to store the haul from the morning’s egg hunt.
Candy Guessing Game
This easy indoor game can last all day with participants guessing at their leisure. Fill a clear jar with jelly beans – or caramel – and have everyone guess the total number of pieces. Winner (the closest without going over) takes home the container, the candy, and bragging rights!
Read Books
Add a fun literary tradition to the day by reading holiday-themed books. Whether you add them to Easter baskets or check them out of the library, a family read-along is always great fun. Oprah Magazine has a great list of egg-ceptional Easter books for kids and families to read together.
Plant Something
The first holiday of Spring, Easter is all about rebirth and is the perfect time to plant something. Weather permitting, start a garden outdoors. House Beautiful has suggestions for the best veggies to plant in April. Still cold where you are? Consider starting seedlings in an egg carton (after all, you’ve probably got several left over from dying all those eggs). PBS has a great step-by-step how to. You can also turn eggshells into beautiful flowerpots. Try it with flowers, herbs or, even, succulents.
Tasting Party
Grab a big bag of jellybeans, put on blindfolds and taste test the various flavors. See who has the most refined palette and can identify the greatest number of flavors. Alternatively, you can download the McCrea’s Candies tasting guide and host a pre- or post-dinner caramel tasting party. No eggs-aggeration, this is fun for the whole family.
Birds’ Nests
Cooking is such a fun thing to do together as a family. Try whipping up some coconut shortbread nests filled with salted caramel and mini Easter eggs. Combine your favorite flavor of McCrea’s Candies with some half-and-half melted together in the microwave for the recipe’s wonderful caramel center. Birds’ Nests can be used as place settings by adding a toothpick flag decorated with each guest’s name or presented as a delicious dessert.
Egg Drop
If you don’t mind a little mess, this is a fun – and educational – activity. Ask guests to construct some type of container that will keep an egg from cracking when dropped from ever-increasing elevations. Raid your recycle bin for materials, including cardboard, newspaper, padding, packing supplies and more. A great use for those hardboiled eggs from the morning’s hunt – the egg with the least number of cracks is the winner and can be turned into egg salad after the event. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has directions and helpful hints.