Fun Easter Activities for Children

Easter is a lovely time of year, it falls either in March or April, so right in springtime. Along with the religious meaning, it embraces new life, chocolate and all that spring brings. I’ve put together a list of fun activities to do with your toddler, preschooler or school-age child this Easter.

1. Painting Easter eggs – Hard boil eggs and after they’ve cooled, paint them in your favourite colours. You can also find instructions for dying eggs using natural ingredients. How to hard boil eggs: Place eggs in their shells, gently into a saucepan of boiling water for 12 minutes. Drain off the water carefully. Leave the eggs to cool. Once cooled, they are ready to paint. Take a look at more detailed instructions here.

2. Egg & Spoon Race – Make your own by hard boiling eggs or get a shop-bought egg and spoon race kit and have fun in the garden or park. We’re also National Trust members and often you’ll find egg and spoon races as part of their Easter trails.
3. Make Easter biscuits – using a simple butter biscuit recipe, make cookies in Easter shapes with cookie cutters. Decorate with your choice of icing and sprinkles.
4. Make an Easter basket – find a net for an Easter basket here. Get your child to decorate it and then cut out the basket and stick it together.

5. Easter sticker picture – shops are selling lots of Easter stickers these days – let your child loose with a piece of paper and see what they make. This is a great fine motor skill activity. Top Tip: If your child needs it, take the backing off the sticker page. It just makes it a little easier for little fingers to get the stickers off.
6. Paint an Easter egg picture – We love getting an old shirt on and a mat on the floor and just having a go. We mix paints together to see what happens and then we practise making lines and squiggles with our paintbrushes. Cut out an Easter egg shape from old lining paper and see what designs you get. Find more Easter painting activities here.
7. Go on an Easter egg hunt – either one at home or a local one in public. When the kids are young, simply hiding those small plastic eggs empty is enough with a little treat at the end. When they’re a little older, perhaps add a little chocolate coin into the plastic eggs and then when even older, write clues for finding the eggs to make it a bit more of a challenge. At 5, my eldest is completely fine with just finding all the eggs. There doesn’t need to be anything inside.

8. Easter colouring – there are loads of colouring books for sale in the shops at Easter with pictures of eggs, bunnies and cute chicks. Or you can design your own over at Canva with one of their free accounts. Here’s a springtime coloring book that my kids love.
9. Easter egg bobbing – Get those plastic eggs which split in half. Put them back together and put them in a bowl of water. Provide your child with a ladle or large spoon and see whether they can get them out. They’ll have fun splashing around with these. Or add the eggs to bath-time for a bit of a change for Easter.
10. Easter story-time – find out whether your local library is running an Easter activity and story-time session close to Easter. If they don’t, order Easter-themed books for collection at the library or get yourself some for your own bookshelf and have a sit down and a read with your kids. Take a look at my list of Easter books for toddlers and preschoolers here.

11. Write and design thank you cards for Easter gifts and chocolate.
12. Wear bunny ears!
13. Experience a wide variety of Easter treats – there are some foods which only seem to be around at Easter-time so why not have a try of them with your little ones. Hot cross buns; chocolate nests (though please be aware that mini eggs are a choking hazard) so substitute with something else like Smarties; and carrot cake.
14. Have an Easter-themed movie night. I would go with anything spring-themed. My favourite is “Hop” which is a film about the Easter bunny being a bit rebellious. Other films with a spring-theme are Peter Rabbit, Zootropolis and Chicken Little.
15. Play Easter bingo. I’ve created an 8 square bingo board with Easter themed pictures. It’s perfect for toddlers up to about age 6. Cut out the individual pictures and mix them up. Give each child a board and some counters and whenever a picture that is on their board is picked, they place a counter over it. You could have a winner when someone gets all four corners, or when someone gets a line of four and when someone gets the whole board.