Create an Egg-citing Easter Celebration

While many families have their own traditions to celebrate Easter, often eggs, bunnies, chicks, and egg hunts are part of the festivities. Here are a few fun ideas for Easter decorations, crafts, and games to help you celebrate this springtime holiday with your family.

Eggstravaganza – Children of all ages love to color and decorate Easter eggs! Coloring eggs has been a part of spring festivities for centuries. In both Passover and Easter traditions, the egg symbolizes new life. This year consider involving the whole family in an evening of Easter egg decorating. Younger children kids have fun using Q-tips to dip into egg colorings to decorate their eggs.

Easter baskets - Before Easter arrives, get creative and help your children make their own Easter baskets out of clean half-gallon milk or juice cartons. Cut a 4” piece off the bottom of the milk carton. Clean thoroughly and cut a piece of craft paper to wrap around the container. Glue craft sticks to create a fence around the container and let dry. When dry, use small flowers or decorative craft foam pieces to decorate the container. Drill a hole to opposite sides. Twist two pipe cleaners together to make a handle. Attach handle on container and fill with Easter grass. This also makes a very nice Easter table decoration. See picture on www.KidsSoup.com/easter.html .

Egg hunt - The egg hunt is the highlight of most Easter celebrations. To make it even more special for younger children, create some cute bunny masks together. Use lightweight paper plates and pink craft paper. Cut out an oval for the bunny’s face and decorate. Cut out holes for eyes. Draw and cut out ears and staple on paper plate. With a hole punch, make holes on each side of the mask and attach a elastic band to fit around your child’s head. You can find a bunny mask pattern on www.kidssoup.com. To ensure that even the smallest hunters get their fair share of the eggs, assign an egg color to each child. To make the egg hunt fun for older children, hide jellybeans instead of chocolate eggs. Design a scavenger egg hunt around the neighborhood. Working alone or in teams, each team solves clues leading to other clues, and eventually to the Easter treats. Create different clue trails for each child or team.

Easter games - Keep the excitement going after the egg hunt by playing some of these games:

Easter Obstacle Course - Separate children into two teams. Provide each team with one spoon and a sugar egg or plastic Easter egg. Each team needs to navigate its way around and through various obstacles without dropping its eggs.

Easter Bunny Hop – Conduct a relay race for two or three teams. Each player must cover a certain distance while jumping with a plastic egg between his/her knees.

Egg Roll - Using only their noses, children must roll an egg across the finish line. This also makes a good relay.

Easter cookies – Your young guests will no doubt be ready for a snack. In addition to any other delicious treats you plan, allow children to decorate some baked sugar cookies shaped like eggs, rabbits, or chicks. (You can bake the cookies ahead of time and freeze them until ready to decorate). Provide bowls of pastel-colored icings, jelly beans, sprinkles, and other decorations.

Here's to a wonderful tradition-filled Easter!