What did the Easter egg hunts of your childhood look like? Ours involved parents madly rushing around scattering small foil wrapped chocolate eggs around the garden willy nilly, and then mopping up the tears of children who found less eggs than their siblings – not exactly a blissful activity!
The following are some tips and hints to make your Easter egg hunt enjoyable for you, and your children.
Safety first:
- Don’t hold a garden Easter egg hunt if your ‘hunters’ are toddlers and/or small children and you have snail or mouse bait out in the garden.
- If you have a dog, make sure that he/she is kept well away from a garden Easter egg hunt. This is because chocolate is highly toxic for dogs, and the last thing you want is to make an emergency dash to the Vet over Easter.
We recommend that you structure your hunt so that you use a permanent maker to put the first letter of your kid’s names on Easter eggs (eggs wrapped in plain coloured foil are best for this approach). The idea is that kids have to find all the eggs with their letters on them. You could also use coloured eggs as the unique identifier instead of letters (i.e. each child is assigned an egg colour and can only gather eggs of that colour). This approach means that there are an equal number of Easter eggs hidden in the garden, so no-one is going to miss out, and everyone is a winner. Mind you, do take note of where you hide the eggs so you can steer children who are having trouble finding their eggs in the right direction.
Consider holding an Easter egg bowling competition on the lawn. What you need is three boiled eggs per person (children can decorate their eggs before playing), and one undecorated boiled egg which will serve as the “jack”. The jack is placed at one end of the lawn, and bowlers go to the other end of the lawn. The idea is to take it in turns to bowl eggs to see whose egg gets closest to the jack. The closest egg wins.
Whatever activities you decide on, make sure that the primary focus is spending time with one another, sharing a laugh, and making good memories.
