13 Festive Easter Egg Hunt Ideas
My daughter’s first Easter as a mobile human!
Here comes Peter Cottontail, hoppin’ down the bunny trail — and he’ll be hippity hoppity-ing into your back yard on March 31 this year. Which means you still have a little time to firm up your Easter egg hunt plans, gather your supplies, and muster the wherewithal to put it all together (and then give all of the credit to an invisible, Sasquatch-sized rabbit.)
To make it super easy for you, I’ve compiled this extensive list of brilliant backyard Easter egg hunt ideas, including different types of eggs to hide, what to put in them, where to hide them, how many to hide, and how to make your Easter egg hunt the BEST EVER with fun games and activities.
I’ve done a whole bunch of sifting through hundreds of products on Amazon to find the best-rated and most competitively priced Easter eggs, fillers, and fun games and prizes to help you make this year’s Easter egg hunt the most epic one ever. I may get a small commission if you buy anything from one of the links. Helps keep us in eggs!
Before we get into Easter egg hunt ideas and activities, let’s cover some basics.
How many eggs per person do you need for an Easter egg hunt?
A standard rule of thumb is to hide around a dozen eggs per hunter. For little kids, 10 per child will do, and for older kids, including teenagers and adults, you can go as high as 15 or 20 eggs per hunter.
How do you host an Easter Egg hunt for both big and little kids?
Set loose a gaggle of elementary or middle schoolers for a backyard Easter egg hunt, and any toddlers and preschoolers in attendance are gonna get trampled — or worse, end up with an empty Easter basket at the end. So how do you keep the big kids from hoarding all the goods?
Hide different eggs for different ages. Tell the big kids they can only pick up eggs with an X on top — if there’s no X, they have to put it back where they found it. Alternatively, hide warm-colored eggs (yellow, red, orange) for the tiny kids and cool-colored ones (blue, green, purple) for the older kids.
Create different zones for different ages. Hide the little kids’ eggs on one side of the yard and the big kids’ eggs on the other, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Or tell the older kids they can only pick up eggs hidden in a spot that’s waist-high or higher, and leave the eggs closer to the ground for the littles.
Have different ages hunt at different times. Set up the hunt for the big kids, and once they’re done, task them with hiding a fresh crop of eggs for the little kids while you supervise with a cold Easter beverage — they’ll probably hiding eggs just as fun as hunting for them!
How to hide Easter eggs
Hiding Easter eggs isn’t rocket science, but here are some tips to consider:
Count the eggs before you hide them so you’ll know they’ve all been found once the hunt’s over.
For little kids, hide the eggs just above their eye level and lower, and make sure they’re visible from at least one angle without having to move something out of the way.
For older kids, hide the eggs within reach — but you can obscure them with foliage or hide them inside the grill.
If you have a huge back yard and need to keep the kids corralled a bit, section off the hunt area with stakes or barricade tape.
If you want all the kids to get the same number of eggs — or you’re filling them with different items and you want everyone to get a variety — hide eggs in different colors, and assign each kid a color.
Now that we’ve got the basics out of the way, here are some fun ideas for the hunt.
6 Easter egg hunt ideas
Photo by Eren Li
1: Bunny hop Easter egg hunt
For little kids, a bunny hop Easter egg hunt not only helps them burn energy but also makes the hunt a lot more fun! Show the littles how to hop like bunnies, and tell them they have to hop from hiding spot to hiding spot. Bonus if you hand them all Easter bunny ears before the festivities begin!
2: Easter egg treasure hunt
Instead of a free-for-all, organize your Easter egg hunt so that participants work together to find the eggs — and then share in the bounty. To start the hunt, give them an egg with a clue inside it that leads them to the next egg with the next clue. At each “stop,” include prizes like candy, coins, or small toys that the hunters can divide among them. This Easter egg hunt idea can take the kids from the back yard to the front yard to inside the house — wherever you can hide eggs and create clever clues to lead the hunters there. Some quick ideas for hiding spots: in the mail box, under the bushes, inside a down spout, buried in a planter box, or hidden under stones in the rock garden.
3: Easter egg scavenger hunt
A scavenger hunt element adds a whole new level of fun to a run-of-the-mill Easter egg hunt. Inside each Easter egg, include a piece of paper with the name of an object found in nature on it, such as a twig shaped like an L, a small flower, or a smooth round rock — whatever they might find in your neck of the woods. Participants have to find the object and put it inside the Easter egg. At the end of the hunt, they can use their filled eggs as “money” to “buy” prizes, like small toys or candy.
4: Glow-in-the-dark Easter egg hunt
A nighttime Easter egg hunt? Why not? These plastic fillable glowing Easter eggs have a rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars and come with 72 mini glow sticks — there’s also a 48-pack that comes with 144 mini glow sticks. The eggs measure 2.5 x 1.5 inches, and the nontoxic, non-leaking mini glow sticks burn brightly for six to 10 hours — just snap ‘em, shake ‘em, and stick ‘em in the eggs.
5: Puzzle Easter egg hunt
Hide pieces of a jigsaw puzzle inside fillable eggs, along with some candy. Once all of the eggs are found, the participants can pony up their pieces and put the puzzle together while they snack on their candy. Here’s an Easter Bunny jigsaw puzzle with bunny-, butterfly, and egg-shaped pieces. You can choose the humber of pieces, from 20 to 52. The final puzzle measures 11x14 inches.
6: Poker Easter egg hunt for adults
Hide five eggs per adult. Each egg has a playing card in it. Once they find 5 eggs, they’re done — their hand has been dealt for the ensuing poker game. Include dimes, nickels, and quarters — or a few poker chips — in each egg so everyone has something to ante up and bet with.
Easter egg hunt adaptations for accessibility
A “traditional” Easter egg hunt may not work for children with sensory or mobility issues. Here are some ideas for adapting an Easter egg hunt so that children of all abilities can participate.
For wheelchair users, hide eggs at eye level — and within easy reach. You can use sticky tack dots to adhere lightweight plastic eggs to vertical surfaces like the house, fence, the backs of patio chairs, or smooth-ish tree trunks. Use the tacky dots to stick string to some eggs, and hang them from tree branches, the patio umbrella, and other taller structures. For older kids, create an Easter egg treasure hunt with clues that lead them along accessible paths to the hidden eggs.
I read about one mom who dressed in a whole bunch of layers and brought the egg hunt to her child—she hid eggs in folds and pockets and had her kid pat her down to find them and retrieve them! She said they had a blast!
Here are some other egg hunt ideas for children with mobility or sensory impairments—pick what works for yours, and adapt it as needed:
Attach an Easter basket to a wheelchair or walker with zip ties or string—or give kids a cute egg collection apron to put on!
Hide Easter eggs in a large tub (or tubs) filled with shredded-paper Easter basket filler, sand, or other loose-fill material. You can even set up “stations” where kids can dig for different types of eggs, such as a station where they hunt for eggs with candy inside and one where they hunt for eggs with toys inside. To make the hunt equitable, color code the eggs, and assign each hunter a color.
Use sticky dots to attach helium balloons to the hidden eggs to make them easier to see and retrieve.
Hide these beeping Easter eggs, which chirp clearly for around two hours to help kids zero in on their location.
Give your hunter or hunters a grabber tool to pick up eggs without bending down. (Here’s a six pack of grabber tools that are affordable and color-coded!) Keep in mind that these may not work well for very small hands.
“Hide” the eggs right on top of the grass. To make it a little more challenging, hide green eggs. For easier visibility, use large or brightly contrasting eggs, or hold the hunt in the evening and use glow-in-the-dark eggs (or mark the hiding spots with mini glow sticks.)
Use hot glue or sticky tack dots to stick strong magnets to the eggs, and hand the hunter a magnetic pole for easy retrieval.
Do you have any additional ideas or tips for an inclusive, accessible Easter egg hunt? Let us all know in the comments!
7 Easter egg hunt games and activities
In addition to the Easter egg hunt proper, consider adding a few games and activities to make the event even more fun. Here are some Easter party game ideas:
1: Egg-and-spoon race
Grab some spoons from the silverware drawer, and use the eggs from the Easter egg hunt to stage an egg-and-spoon relay race. Divide the group into two teams — have queue up behind the starting line. Participants place the egg on their spoon and race to the turnaround point and back, then hand off the egg and spoon to the next team member. If someone drops their egg, they have to go back to the starting line and try again until they make it to the turnaround and back without dropping it. Whichever team finishes first wins the race. Here’s a popular egg-and-spoon relay game set that comes with 12 colorful wooden spoons and 12 decorated wooden eggs — and a rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars!
2: Bunny hop sack race
You probably don’t have large burlap potato sacks laying around for this timeless game, but you can also use pillow cases or even large garbage bags instead. Or you can spring for this inexpensive sack race game, which comes with 6 colorful, Easter-themed potato sack jumping bags and matching bunny ear headbands — and a rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars. Have the kids step into their bag and hop from the starting line to the finish line and back. If you’ve got more than 6 kids participating, make it a relay race with teams.
3: Easter piñata
Need an extra way to (literally) shower Easter candy on the kids? An Easter piñata is the way to go. They come in lots of designs, including bunnies and eggs, and many of them come with a blindfold and stick. If you’re the crafty sort, make your own paper mache piñata with an egg-shaped balloon as the base. Cover it in mache, let it dry, then decorate it with paint or tissue paper. Cut out a small hole at the top to load it up with candy or toys, then tape or paper mache over it.
4: Bunny ear ring toss
This inflatable bunny ear ring toss game comes with two sets of inflatable bunny ears, 12 inflatable rings, and a manual air pump, and it’s got a 4.1-star review. You can play this in teams or every player for themselves. The bunny ears are wearable, but you can also set them on the ground to make it easier for little kids to score points.
5: Pin the tail on the bunny
Draw a bunny on a large piece of paper, and stick double-sided glue dots to large cotton balls. Blindfold each participant, give ‘em a couple of spins, and point them in the general direction of the bunny. No time to get it all together? Try this ready-to-play pin-the-tail-on-the-bunny game with a rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars.
6: Egg decorating contest
Photo by cottonbro studio
Set up an Easter egg decorating table, and let the kids get creative with real or wooden Easter eggs. Go with the classic PAAS Easter egg dyeing kit, or try a kit with pearlescent colors, a metallic finish, or foam colors that result in spectacular swirls of color.
7: Easter bingo
This Easter bingo set comes with 28 durable cards, a callout card, and 8 sheets of heavy-duty pop-out markers — and it’s got a 4.5 out of 5 rating.
Fun egg options for an Easter egg hunt
Photo by Rasa Kasparaviciene
Traditionally, the eggs you dyed with the kids became the eggs you hid for the Easter egg hunt. Nowadays, you can find Easter eggs prefilled with all sorts of fun things — or fillable eggs you can stuff with toys, candy, or money. Here are some delightful options for eggs to hide, which I curated based on price and 4+ star reviews.
Prefilled Easter Eggs
Filled Easter eggs take a lot of the work out of hosting a backyard Easter egg hunt. They arrive with the goodies already inside the egg, so all you have to do is hide them.
