Easter Egg Hunt Ideas

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Growing up the youngest of nine children, my mom had to get creative with the Easter egg hunt ideas each year. Somehow she had to engage the teenagers and delight the young children all at the same time. Then, as we all grew older she held hunts for all the grandchildren, but there are so many of them (more than 45) that it got to the point that we would hide a bunch and then scatter the candy and prizes all over the lawn and like the start of a race – let the children loose into the yard to gather treats.

easter basket

Here are 8 really fun Easter egg hunt ideas to mix things up:

Hunt for Someone Else

To help avoid the “gimmies” have your children fill a basket for another child in the family. That way, as they go around looking for treats and prizes, they’ll have the other child in mind instead of rushing to gather everything for themselves.

Clues

Hand them their first clue and send them off on a scavenger hunt with a prize/treat at each stop for each child and a clue to find the next location.

Teenagers

If you’ve got teenagers, allow them to hide the items for each other. My mom did this, but underestimated the incredible hiding spots teenagers could find and we were still discovering hidden treats months after Easter. So, if you go with this, perhaps have them keep a record of what they hide where. 🙂 I also think it would be really fun to hide each item and take a picture of where it is hidden and then text it to your teen one at a time. That way they get a picture text and have to find the item before getting another text.

Color Coded Eggs

Designate a certain color of plastic egg for each child, that way you (and they) know everything is distributed equally.

Rotten Eggs & Reward Eggs

Hide a few eggs that have slips of paper with something like, “You have to scratch Mom’s back for 5 minutes before you can eat another piece of candy” or “You must empty the kitchen trash before you have another piece of candy”. I also love the idea of including reward eggs. These are great for replacing some of the candy (since there seems to be an overload at each holiday). I’ve even got a free printable that you can just cut up and include in the eggs. That way each child can find something fun they get as a reward.

Store or Auction

Instead of filling the plastic eggs with candy, fill them with Monopoly money or slips of paper with a dollar amount. Then open a “store” or have a family auction for treats and prizes.

Numbered

Fill each egg with a slip of paper with a number on it, then have each treat or prize have a corresponding number. Once they’ve gathered their eggs, they can trade their papers for prizes!

Money Filled

Hide some of the eggs with coin money in them and then have one golden egg that is hidden with $5.00 inside it.

2 Comments

  1. Love this, Tia! Brilliant ideas! My mom always wrote our names on everything so we all got equal amounts and items. But there were only 3 of us, so it wasn’t such a big deal. 🙂

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