How to Host a Party

How to hold an Easter Egg Hunt

Ah! I love Easter parties!  Especially the classic 'egg hunt' party; it take a bit of work but you do get a lot of bang-for-your-buck and often you can do pretty much the whole thing outside which is great as your house doesn't get so trashed!

We do a variant on the usual hunt where you hide the eggs around the garden for the children to find.  Most of them are filled with candy but the odd one has a 'Prize!' slip inside.

If you find a Prize slip you get to choose a prize from a selection.

We also get plain paper bags with handles to gather the eggs in and the kids decorate them at the start of the party.

What you need:

For the paper bags you want something fairly sturdy and preferably white for instance these paper bags. 
Alternatively if you're not getting the kids to decorate the bags you can get ready-to-use bags.

Get a bunch of crayons, pens, ink stamps (and Easter stickers if you’re feeling generous).

Prize! notes: We add about three prize notes per child so that hopefully everyone gets at least one, for your convenience here’s a PDF I use to print them.

Prizes: Get a bunch of prizes the kids can choose if they find the special Prize eggs. Either just a few nice prizes or cheap stuff like these .

For the candy I try to choose things that are going to be OK outside so small, wrapped, candy is best.

There are a wide variety of extras you can find for your hunt:

• Boundary tape for your egg hunt area.
• Spray can to draw a 'start line' on the lawn
• Egg Hunt Yard Sign for your lawn

Games

You might want to check out our party games section for some party game ideas.

Before the day

Print out and cut-up the Prize! Sheet above.

A day or two before the party fill the eggs with your preferred treats.

On the day

Set out a table with the paper bags for decorating and the decorating supplies.

As late as you can (especially if it's wet or damp) scatter/hide the eggs around the garden (or house if appropriate). We try and have two sections one for the really young ones where the eggs are in plain sight and another where it’s much harder.

You could split the eggs by colour so that the younger ones have one colour which are easy to find that the older kids are not allowed to find.

Alternatively let the kids set off in age order.

Sometimes we’ve found it appropriate to place a limit per child as otherwise you can end up with some poor little child with nothing whereas their more aggressive friends have bags full.

When they find a Prize! egg they come to the prize table and choose one or, for even MORE fun, have a lucky dip.

We've found through bitter experience that you need to:

• Make sure they return your plastic eggs, and
• Try to persuade the kids to re-close them as they put them back; it's no fun trying to match 1,200 egg halves the night before the party next year!

Alternative Versions

There are several alternative versions of the classic Easter Egg Hunt; for instance a common variation is to have a trail of clues leading to the eggs.

A reader emailed in and described the local egg hunt they organize in the village of High Easter which gets about 200 participants and sounds like a lot of fun:

The hunt is advertised around the village.  Each person is given a number and on the day of the hunt they have to walk round the village with clue sheets looking for the egg with their number which is hidden in someone's garden.
After the egg hunt has finished, it's back to the village hall for refreshments.
I dress up as the Easter Bunny, and someone dresses up as the Easter Chick.

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