4 Tips for an "Eggcellent" Easter Egg Hunt

Have you ever wondered why the Easter egg became such a well known Easter tradition? Some say the custom of giving Easter eggs is in celebration of new life and rebirth, tied to the resurrection of Jesus. History tells us that eggs were a forbidden food during Lent, so they were decorated to be eaten on Easter Sunday. Origins of the Easter bunny in America date back in the 1700s, when children would make nests for an "egg-laying hare" to fill with colored eggs. Nowadays, amongst other traditions like finding where the Easter bunny hid the Easter basket and decorating eggs comes the annual Easter Egg Hunt.

 

 

Pick a color for each age bracket, based on your number of "egg hunters." The younger kids can hunt for one color, and the older another. This would allow for all the different ages to participate, but eliminates unhealthy competition. Another idea would be to color code the eggs by boys and girls.

 

Each child gets an identical map, with the location of each egg marked. For younger kids, use simple pictures, for older kids you can get more creative and detailed. For the more creative, clues can be written in rhymes. Perhaps you only provide one big map in one location, as a point of reference for hints. This also helps keep a record and inventory of your eggs.

 

If you don't have many kids to participate, or don't feel like going through the mass production and hiding  200 eggs all over the place, consider a hint trail. You can tie in the age gap with a larger group of kids with this idea too. Each child, or each age bracket is given a starter hint, which leads them to the first egg, which has the next hint, and so on. At the very end is a final egg that has a special non-candy prize for the winner, but don't forget to award all participants!

 

This is a great idea for teachers to be able to incorporate a little spelling into the Easter egg hunt in the classroom, but fun at home too. Using stickers or a sharpie, mark a different letter on each one. You can still put candy inside, but instead of a final winner being whoever had the most eggs, see who can spell the longest word, or the most words, using only the letters of the eggs they found.

 

Hopefully these ideas bring a little extra fun to the annual Easter egg hunt for families of private schools in Buffalo and Western New York. Do you have your own tradition that we didn't mention? Feel free to share it with us on Facebook!