The Ultimate Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

I love holidays, and each year I have the pleasure of hosting a neighborhood Easter Egg hunt. We invite the children living on our block, plus a couple of my children’s close friends. Last weekend, we had our hunt and 18 kids ages 2-12. Our hunt included 450 stuffed Easter Eggs, Minute-to-Win-it games, races, egg coloring, and snacks. Everyone had a blast! Here is my guide to hosting the Ultimate Guide to a Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt.

Flyer

Have fun this Easter by hosting the neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. I made the flyer colorful and fun to excite people about the hunt. I handed out some flyers at the bus stop and put the rest in our neighbor’s mailboxes. Making a flyer on Canva is free. Check out their site www.canva.com.

Easter Eggs

The next thing I did was purchase plastic Easter Eggs and candy. I wanted to ensure each child had enough eggs, so I purchased 450. I purchase the eggs at Walmart. They had packs of 48 eggs for $1.99, which I thought was reasonable.

The plastic eggs were made well and clicked when closed. They stayed close as I was hiding them.

I purchased a bag of plastic eggs with two gold eggs.

I hid one gold Easter Egg for the children five and under and one for six and up to find. The golden egg for the older age group had big kids written on it. This made it easier for the children to know which golden egg they should find.

The older age group had to work harder to find their egg.

Once a child found a golden egg, they were instructed to give it to me for a prize.

Candy

The candy was the most expensive part of the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt. I did purchase large packs of name-brand candy such as M&Ms, Twix, Snickers, and Resee’s. I was able to find one large bag of Bunny Mix at Walmart. Which is chocolate covered with Easter-themed wrapping. This was a cheaper option, but I could only find one bag.

If you rather not hide candy in the eggs, you can hide change, dollar bills, tickets they can trade in for prizes, cereal, goldfish, Cheeze-Its, grapes, fruit snacks, or small toys.

Decorations

I have a pretty flat backyard, which is not great for hiding eggs. To help with this, I purchased some cardboard Easter lawn signs and a blow-up Easter Bunny from Oriental Trading and Amazon. I hid some eggs behind the lawn signs and on the blow-up Easter Bunny.

Since some older children were coming to the egg hunt, I had to think of creative ways to hide some eggs.

I tied a string from our swingset to the fence. Next, I stuck a pipe cleaner through the top hole of the plastic egg and bent the end so that it would not come out.

I twisted the other end of the pipe cleaner on the string, so the eggs were hanging from the string.

You can use a pipe cleaner to hand the eggs anywhere.

You can hang them from the fence, trees, patio furniture, or anywhere. It makes the children work a little harder to get their eggs.

Egg Coloring

My daughter Janelle asked me to add Easter Eggs coloring to our hunt this year. This was a reasonable request, so we decided to try it this year.

I purchased enough eggs for each child to color three eggs.

Using my Cricut,I printed Easter Bunnys on foil vinyl and stuck them to the eggs before the hunt. This was a big hit. The children enjoyed the stickers. If you do not have a Cricut, you can purchase easter stickers.

I also set out white crayons for the children to write on their eggs before placing them in the egg dye. My 4-year-old loves this and thinks it’s magic.

The egg dye will not be attached to the wax, so any design they make will show up after they dye their egg.

Once the eggs were dry, the children could stuff paper lunch bags with Easter grass to place their Easter eggs in.

Games

I suggest adding some games to the egg hunt. It is a great way for the children to play together. We played several games at our egg hunt. Each game had two winners: one big kid winner and one little kid winner.

Each child that won for their age group was awarded 100 points. At the end of the games, the children from each age group with the highest score would win a prize. I kept a small notepad with me to keep track of the points.

Easter Races

Spoon Race: Each child had to run holding a spoon with an egg. You can use a plastic egg or a Caramel Creme Egg.

Potato Sack Race: Purchase potato sacks and divide the children into two teams. Designate a racing area. Have one member from each team race to one end of the race area, then back to the beginning. Once their turn is over, have them sit at the end of the line. The team that has all their members sitting wins!

Bunny Hop: Each child had to hop to the other side like a bunny. Optional: You can have each child wear bunny ears while doing this.

Minute-to-WIn-it games are a great way to keep the party going. Since they are quick-moving, children do not need a long attention span to play. I did have two winners for each game, one for each age group.

Easter Minute-to-Win-it Games

Plastic Egg Stacking:

Materials: Plastic Easter egg pieces.

Object: See how many plastic egg pieces they can stack in a minute.

Materials: chopsticks, plastic spoons, jelly beans

Using a spoon or chopsticks, see how many jelly beans each child can move from one cup to another in one minute. I have the children five, and under use a spoon, and the children six and up use chopsticks.

Materials: plastic spoon, jelly beans, cup, or bowl.

Object: Children have to hold the end of a plastic spoon in their mouth and see how many they can stack on the spoon in a minute

Materials: Cadbury Creme Eggs, Spoon

Object: Children have to roll a Cadbury Creme Egg across the lawn by pushing it with a spoon. The child that gets the furthest in a minute wins, or whichever child passes the finish line first wins.

Materials: Cadbury Creme Egg

Object: Children have to walk across the lawn with a Cadbury Creme Egg on their heads. Each time it falls, they have to pick it up and go back to the beginning. The child who is the furthest wins.

Head, Shoulders, Knees, Jump, Egg!

This game was the most fun by far. It is sort of like Simon Says but better:

Materials: chopsticks, two bathroom cups per child, jelly beans. Object: Using chopsticks, see how many jelly beans you can move from one cup to another in one minute

Set up

Have the children stand in two rows. Each child should be standing across from a partner with about 2-3 feet between them. Place a plastic Easter egg in the middle of each set of partners. If you have ten kids in a row, then you should have ten eggs.

Explain to the kids that they have to grab the egg once you yell egg. Whoever grabs the egg makes it to the next round.

Yell out head, shoulders, knees, jump, egg. Whoever grabs the egg makes it to the next round. The last kid standing wins. I suggest playing a couple of practice rounds first, so the kids understand what to do.

You can get creative with what you want the kids to do before grabbing the egg. Some suggestions include:

• Spin
• Nose
• Elbows
• Toes
• Stomach
• Booty Shake

You can you any phrase that you would use in Simon Says.

Snacks

I handed out snacks after all the activities were finished. I purchased Easter cookies and cupcakes, and water bottles. Neighbors also brought over deserts. The children enjoyed snack time.

When the snacks were over, I handed everyone a bubble wand. You can also hand out chalk or another outside toy. The children played outside for a bit longer before everyone went home. It was an awesome day, and everyone had a great time.