45 Easter Egg Hunt Ideas You Haven’t Tried Before
Everyone knows that Easter egg hunts are the highlight of the holiday. Still, an exceptional hide-and-hunt isn’t easy to pull off. Too hard, too easy, too cut-throat—there’s plenty to consider, but perhaps the worst outcome of all is a yearly Easter egg hunt that has grown tiresome. That’s why we rounded up a slew of fresh and exciting Easter egg hunt ideas, so you can provide plenty of entertainment for the young people in your life. And if you need more ideas for the day, how about DIY-ing one of these creative Easter basket ideas? Trying to cut back on sweets? Check out our roundup of non-candy Easter basket treats for kids of all ages. Whatever you do, don’t forget to stock the house with copious amounts of Easter candy.
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One Little Project
1. Image Transfer Easter Eggs
This neat image transfer craft works with just about any image, making it an excellent way to personalize your kid’s Easter egg hunt with a theme that reflects their personal taste. Hint: The Encanto fanatic in your life will be thrilled to collect eggs that have been decorated with the complete cast of characters.
RgStudio/Getty
2. Picture Clue Egg Hunt
Remember that year you stayed up late writing clever limerick clues for your preschooler’s Easter egg hunt, only to realize the next morning the idea would’ve worked better with a bigger kid? Well, friends, this picture clue egg hunt is a genius workaround that the little kid crowd will thank you for.
Happiness is Homemade
3. Easter Egg Scavenger Hunt
Speaking of clever clues—it turns out you don’t even have to write your own. Check out this free printable, which features clues that lead to hiding places all homes have in common (think: the bathroom sink or the refrigerator) for an exciting egg hunt that’s as easy as pie.
One Little Project
4. DIY Galaxy Easter Eggs
Skip the standard plastic eggs (and the candy) and opt for an artsier egg hunt instead. You don’t need to be the next Van Gogh to pull off this starry night—a few bottles of nail polish and some silver glitter are all you’ll need—and the end result will amaze kids of all ages.
Science Sparks
5. Decode the Clue Easter Egg Hunt
The code you use for this clever egg hunt will depend on the age and ability of your child, but no matter how you design the clues, the decoding element guarantees a harder egg hunt. (Hey, you want your kid to really work for that candy, right?)
Kid Friendly Things to Do
6. Easter Egg Bowling
Set your kids up with Easter egg bowling (i.e., bocce ball with a festive twist) to extend the fun once all the eggs have been found. All you need are several colorful or decorated eggs, plus one white egg (not raw) and you’re ready to play the game.
One Little Project
7. DIY Yarn Eggs
Easter eggs get a whole new look in this easy and kid-friendly craft, which involves wrapping a candy-filled balloon with yarn to create egg-shaped nests. It’s hard to say whether kids will have more fun making these or hunting them down once the Easter Bunny hides them away.
The House that Lars Built
8. Easter Egg Tree Hunt
Three cheers for an Easter craft that you won’t mind displaying in the middle of your living room. Or, if the weather permits, do the same to a couple of outdoor trees to keep bigger kids on their toes (literally).
Alice and Lois
9. âEaster Bunny Says' Egg Hunt
This game is just like Simon Says, but with a bunny-eared twist. Simply use the free printable to turn the average egg hunt into an even more energetic and interactive experience full of fun suggestions and activities. Plus, it also ensures your kid will get some exercise before putting away all those Easter basket goodies.
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10. Egg Counting And Number Game
Counting, number identification and basic math get a boost from this Easter egg hunt idea for little kids, which involves using numbered index cards to determine the number of eggs your kid can collect per round. For an extra challenge, lay out the cards your child has chosen after each round and ask her if she can figure out how many eggs are in her basket without counting them before she draws again.
Studio DIY
11. DIY Egg Popper Tree
Part Easter egg hunt, part piñata—these hanging, candy-filled egg poppers are guaranteed to excite big and little kids alike. Best of all, precious few materials are required to prepare this activity and start Easter off with a bang.
Over the Big Moon
12. Easter Egg Hunt Printable Hints
Watching little kids hunt for Easter eggs—much like watching them play hide and seek—is both entertaining and excruciating. (Let’s be honest, your young child is really bad at looking for things.) Do something generous this Easter and give your child a leg up on the activity with these printable hints.
The Best Ideas for Kids
13. Kid-crafted Easter Egg Hunt
Children will enjoy this simple hands-on craft, which comes together with only a few budget-friendly materials and produces both a basket and a collection of sparkly cardstock eggs to go inside.
Celebrations At Home
14. Easter Egg Balloons
Combine two of your kid’s favorite things (balloons and chocolate) in this sweet Easter egg hunt idea. They’ll love the colorful surprise waiting for them in the backyard (or in your living room), and you’ll love how easy this one is to throw together. Win-win.
15. Easter Advent Calendar Hunt
Sarah Hearts
Why limit the treat-finding fun to a single day when you can stretch it out for a full week? This unique idea involves hiding seven candy-filled goody bags, so kids can start counting down to the main event with a mini hunt every day.
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16. Find Your Name Easter Egg Hunt
Stop sibling rivalry in its (bunny) tracks and avoid the dreaded he-found-more-than-me meltdown with an Easter egg hunt that requires each kid to find only the eggs needed to spell out their own name. Hint: This works best if the kids in your brood have names of roughly equivalent length (alternatively, you can get creative with middle names and initials to even the playing field).
Fun at Home with Kids
17. Magic Easter Egg Hunt
They might not be filled with candy, but these foaming and fizzing Easter eggs definitely don’t disappoint. In fact, they promise to provide plenty of excitement and hands-on engagement after the main egg hunt event.
Christopher Kimmel/Alpine Edge Photography/Getty Images
17. Easter Egg Treasure Map
A hand-drawn treasure map not only adds adventure to a typical Easter egg hunt, but an element of literacy to boot. This Easter egg hunt is also completely customizable: You can choose to stick to pictures or include simple sentences (depending on the age of your child) and there are multiple ways to create an extended search before your child reaches the loot.
Sew Many Ways
18. Color-coded Egg Hunt
Not only does this color-coded egg hunt boast an educational element for little kids, it’s also an ideal approach when you want to ensure a fair and balanced game for a group. Assign each child a color, give them a corresponding basket and watch as everyone gets in on the fun without duking it out.
Over the Big Moon
19. Easter Egg Privilege Cards
There’s plenty of candy in that Easter basket...but what about the other rewards your kid hounds you for on the regular? This Easter egg hunt covers all the bases, so your kid can earn a little extra screen time or a get-out-of-clean-up card—a pretty sweet way to wash down that chocolate bunny.
Make the Best of Everything
20. Easter Egg Puzzle Hunt
This incredibly cool egg hunt begins with a puzzle and ends with an Easter basket grand prize. Simply score a blank puzzle set and marvel at the genius of this Easter activity, which boasts a skill-boosting component and delayed gratification in the candy department, too.
Happy Go Lucky
21. Kool-Aid Playdough Eggs
Turns out Kool-Aid is the secret ingredient for homemade playdough that looks and smells amazing. Stuff some of this molding medium into each Easter egg and you can rest assured your kids hands will stay busy well after every egg has been found.
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22. Reverse Easter Egg Hunt
Looking for a clever trick to play on a toddler? Turn the Easter egg hunt ritual on its head and have your tot fill her own eggs with household knick-knacks or whatever nature has to offer. We promise your little one won’t be mad about the opportunity to explore—and you’ll be happy when naptime happens without a hitch (i.e., sugar high).
Fun at Home with Kids
23. Giant Easter Egg Hunt
The only thing cooler than an Easter egg hunt for kids is a super-sized one: Craft these giant plaster eggs with your child for some pre-holiday fun or make them solo for an unforgettable Easter surprise (and some ‘hidden’ material that doesn’t take too long to find).
Fun-a-Day
24. Alphabet Egg Hunt
Learning the ABCs is a lot more fun with this interactive Easter egg hunt that gets little kids running in all directions—checklist in hand—until they find every egg of the alphabet.
Rhythms of Play
25. Eco-friendly Wooden Egg Hunt
Try your hand at making these gorgeous wooden eggs, which can be made with nothing more than watercolor paints and a pencil to outline your designs. Best of all, these eco-friendly eggs will last for many Easter celebrations to come.
Mas and Pas
26. Indoor Easter Egg Hunt
Another Easter egg hunt for when the weather doesn’t cooperate, this indoor hunt comes with free printable clues. Use these clues on their own or combine them with another printable from the list to extend the fun.
Studio DIY
27. Easter Egg Cake Hunt
Cardstock eggs are hidden behind patches of grass on top of a beautiful white Easter cake. OK, this miniature egg hunt doesn’t present much of a challenge but it’s a pretty sweet substitute for a real egg hunt (and every bit as Insta-worthy).
Happiness is Homemade
28. Marbled Easter Eggs
Set your child up with a roasting pan, acrylic paint and some wooden eggs for an egg-decorating project that’s completely kid-friendly, easy to clean up, and produces a finished product—colorful, marbled eggs—that’s way cooler than anything you can create with a store-bought decorating kit.
Persia Lou
29. Egg Hunt Joke Cards
Inject a little humor into this year’s egg hunt by tucking these scratch-off printable joke cards into each hidden egg along with a quarter (so your kid can read the punchline before putting the prize into his piggy bank). This one’s creative, entertaining and way healthier than candy.
Andrew Bret Wallis/Getty Images
30. Easter Bunny Trail
You know how excited your kid is when the cookies left out for Santa have been eaten overnight? Well, the same principle applies here. Set up this bunny trail and your kids will be giddy to see evidence that the Easter bunny really came. Bonus: This trail will also offer little kids considerable help with the hunt.
Skip to My Lou
31. Chalkboard Painted Easter Eggs
The possibilities are endless with these chalkboard-painted eggs: Decorate them with simple designs, personalize them with your child’s name or, better yet, write a letter on each one for a clue that spells-out the Easter basket’s location.
Productive Pete
32. Lego Easter Egg Hunt
This Easter egg hunt features an unexpected prize—a new Lego set that, once the hunt is complete and all the pieces found, will entertain your child for hours. If you’re the parent of a Lego lover, this one will buttress your kid’s belief in the Easter Bunny.
MesquitaFMS/Getty Images
33. Smartphone Egg Hunt
Introduce a smartphone to this year’s Easter egg hunt and we promise it will get your teen back on board. This hunt follows the same formula as a traditional egg hunt, but with QR codes that must be scanned to reveal the clues. Cool, right?
Tatertots and Jello
34. Photo Scavenger Easter Hunt
Another great option for teens and older kids, this scavenger hunt will keep little bunnies busy scouring the neighborhood for clues, collecting eggs and documenting their success with photos and a printable checklist. Try this one when it’s time to take your traditional egg hunt up a notch (or several).
One Little Project
35. Tie-dye Easter Egg Hunt
This satisfying and simple tie-dye project is an egg decorating craft you can easily do with a kid, and the payoff—colorful Easter eggs with serious visual appeal—is pretty groovy. Pro tip: Be sure to hide these ones well, because they definitely stand out.
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Lovely Indeed
36. DIY Piñata Easter Eggs
Give those store-bought plastic eggs a festive new look with this simple and oh-so clever DIY. The craft requires little more than crepe paper streamers and mod podge, and the resulting piñata eggs deliver just as much candy-filled fun as the real thing, but without any tiny people wielding sticks.
the best ideas for kids
37. Egg Carton Bunny Hunt
Make this year’s Easter egg hunt a little more eco-friendly by replacing plastic eggs with these adorable egg carton bunnies. This kid-friendly craft is a breeze to pull off and the bunny ears on these ‘eggs’ make them just a little bit easier for young kids to find, too.
a pumpkin and a princess
38. Glow in the Dark Egg Hunt
An egg hunt that goes down after dark is sure to deliver extra thrills for the whole family. When it comes to turning ordinary easter eggs into nightlights, you’ve got options. Check out the tutorial for three easy ways to make glow-in-the-dark eggs. (Psst: One method simply involves stuffing a glow stick inside ‘em.)
getty images
39. Easter Egg Hunt Relay Race
For larger groups (or broods), a relay race is an easy way to add extra excitement to an Easter egg hunt. It works the same as any other relay race: Participants split up into two teams and the first person from each team hunts down an egg and returns to tag the next in line to do the same. The race ends and a winner is declared as soon as one team finds a specified number of eggs.
getty images
40. Golden Egg Hunt
A golden egg hunt is just like a regular egg hunt, except a) one of the hidden eggs has been painted gold and b) everyone must channel Veruca Salt in a frantic race to find it first. Of course, all the other eggs will be collected in the process—they’re still treat-filled treasures, after all—but the person who finds the coveted (and ideally very well-hidden) golden egg gets an extra special prize.
41. Cactus Easter Egg Hunt
Delia Creates
These quirky and adorable cactus eggs will blend in with the landscaping like nobody’s business. Best of all, you don’t need anything but a bit of green dye and a black marker to pull off this southwestern-style egg hunt.
42. Sidewalk Chalk Egg Hunt
Skip to my Lou
Plaster of Paris, petroleum jelly and tempera paint combine to make colorful eggs that kids can hunt for and then actually use on the sidewalk. If you’re looking for an egg hunt idea that’s both candy and plastic-free, this one is hard to beat (pun intended).
43. Bunny Hideout Egg Hunt
Dream a Little Bigger
Turn your outdoor space into the Easter Bunny’s stomping (or hopping) grounds with this whimsical DIY project in which craft wood gets an Alice in Wonderland-esque makeover. The project is somewhat involved, but the resulting bunny doors will transform your backyard into a secret garden, whilst providing cover for all those Easter eggs you have to hide. File this one under ‘making holiday magic.’
44. Pipe Cleaner Bunny Hunt
Delia Creates
Ridiculously cute and oh-so festive, these pipe cleaner bunny eggs boast the added benefit of being easier to spot during an egg hunt, which means you’ll be able to shake things up with a host of new hiding spots.
45. Numbered Egg Hunt
The Merrythought
Presenting the coolest follow-the-clue egg hunt idea ever: These beauties are hollowed out to become clue receptacles that, when found (and smashed open) in numerical order, will lead kids to their basket surprise.
