Easter is just over a week away and with it comes visions of very happy children who get to eat chocolate all day long. And while chocolate is a lovely treat, hyperactive children are not – and you just know they’ll be getting it from every quarter!
So here’s an idea to run out those sugar highs and deliver a dose of learning while you’re at it. The Ultimate Educational Easter Egg Hunt combines simple yet effective educational opportunities, with exercise and Easter-themed treats.
What you’ll need:
- Easter eggs wrapped in different colour foil, (different sizes if possible)
- A basket or container for collecting the eggs
- Tags, tape and a pen
- A garden or suitable communal area
- A grand prize for the winner
- Some very excitable children
This Easter egg hunt focuses on colours and counting and is ideal for younger children. For older children, keep reading for magical mystical clues that take this up a level.
What’s going to happen
Teams must collect ONE egg of each colour. When they find a particular colour, they must complete a special task. The task will be written on a tag, taped to the egg.
First team back, wins a prize!
Stage 1 – Set up
Using the tags, tape and pens, write the following task on each tag and tape it to the eggs. Adapt the colours to what you have to hand and the tasks to your children’s abilities.
Red eggs = 5 x Jumping Jacks
Green eggs = 1 x Rolly-Polly
Blue eggs = 10 x Crocodile snaps
Yellow eggs = Run around the garden once
Purple eggs = 4 x Bunny Hops
Hide your eggs at various points around the garden.
Stage 2 – Team preparation
If there are a large number of children, divide them into teams or pairs. Pair younger children with older kids to give them a fair advantage and help with their learning.
Give each team a basket or bucket to collect the eggs, explain the challenge and off you go!
Stage 3 – The Winner!
First team back should be very puffed out and full of smiles! You might like to have prizes of varying sizes at the ready to reward each team in turn.
You’ll find a wonderful range of Easter prize ideas on the what2buy4kids website. There are some delightful token gifts and more substantial presents too – and they’re not all chocolate, either!
How is it Egg-ucational?
This is a super easy way to build colour recognition in kids. The tags will develop their reading skills, counting the exercises will help with maths. If you’ve got older children, incorporating clues takes this to the next level. Instead of exercise instructions, change the description on the tags to a clue for the next hiding place. This takes a little more planning but it’s worth the effort. Here’s how to do it:
Plot a course around the garden or park that incorporates a number of distinctive hiding places. The greenhouse, conservatory, vegetable patch, rose bush, garden steps and so on. If you have friendly neighbours, perhaps you can ask to use their gardens too?
Rhymes work really well with this and make it lots of fun! Here’s how some of the clues might go:
Some call me GREEN
But I’m very see-through
I HOUSE lots of plants
And sparkle like NEW
It’s on to the next, oh where could it be?
Up in the sky or next to the sea?
Never that fair – that would be silly
To find your next egg go see Aunt Lilly!
Roses are red,
Violets are blue
Your next egg is hiding
Right under your shoes!
If it’s raining cats and dogs
You’d use me to keep dry
You’ll find me near the doorway
Just to the left hand side
You get the idea! Hopefully these will provide inspiration for your own environment. I’d recommend splitting children into small groups of two or three. If possible, pair advanced kids with younger ones to help learning and encourage the children to help and share ideas.
Don’t forget to take tonnes of pictures and maybe a video or two. I’d love to see what you’ve created – please tell me all about it in the comments below.
Written by Lisa Bradburn
Lisa is the managing director of what2buy4kids. Lisa’s wish is to make your job of finding a gift for the children in your life easier, or help you to take some of the time and frustration out of the search for that special gift for kids.
You can follow her on Twitter @what2buy4kids and Facebook
at facebook.com/What2Buy4Kids