These Easter family games are sure to keep your kids entertained

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Easter is a perfect opportunity to spend time as a family away from screens and tech, but once your kids are bored and hyped up on sugar, it doesn’t feel so idyllic. Playing games is a great way to keep kids engaged and occupied.

Once you’ve got your head around why Easter doesn’t fall on the same day each year, it’s time to plan some entertainment. These Easter family games will keep kids entertained, just choose options suitable for your kids’ ages and interests.

What games do you play on Easter?

Besides the traditional egg hunt, there aren’t really any specific games that are widely played on Easter. The good thing about this is it leaves you more freedom to find or come up with Easter-themed games that the kids in your life will enjoy. Any of the following can be great fun on Easter day.

Easter treasure hunt

Rather than hiding Easter eggs in multiple spots all over your home or yard, hide one big cache of eggs with a clue-based treasure hunt to find it. Start by giving your kids the first clue. Solving this will lead them to the location of the next written clue, which you can tuck inside a plastic Easter egg. Keep doing with more clues until the final clue leads them to the eggs.

The great thing about this kind of treasure hunt is that you can have as many clues as you like and you can tailor them to your kids’ ages and ability levels. If you think your children might lose interest without incentive, you can put a few pieces of candy in with every other clue.

Egg and spoon race

An egg and spoon race involves balancing an egg on a spoon over a set distance, with the first person to cross the finish line winning the game. Kids and adults alike can join in, resulting in some healthy intergenerational rivalry.

While you can use real hard-boiled eggs for this game, you can also buy egg and spoon race sets containing wooden or plastic eggs with spoons of a suitable size. These eliminate the prep time, potential mess and waste of food.

Carrots in a basket game

All you need for this game is an Easter basket for each team or child and a pile of carrots, for the Easter Bunny, of course. If you’re playing with just a handful of kids, they can each have a basket, but for large family gatherings with lots of kids, divide them into 2-4 teams.

The simple aim is to throw the carrots into the basket without crossing a set mark. It might not be an elaborate game, but this makes it great for young children. When older kids want to get involved, set their mark farther from the basket so they don’t have an advantage.

Challenge-based egg hunt

Spice up your usual egg hunt by filling half the eggs with your usual candy or toys and the other half with written challenges. These challenges can be anything you like but keep them fun and relatively brief. You can even make them Easter-themed, such as “hop like a bunny” or “make the sound of a chick.”

Scoop the jelly beans

For this game, you’ll need one bowl of jelly beans, one empty bowl and a spoon for each player. Give each player 30-60 seconds to move as many jelly beans as they can into the empty bowl using the spoon held in their mouth. Tip the jelly beans the player managed to move into a measuring cup and make a note of the measurement before moving on to the next player. At the end of each round, you can declare a winner.

Water balloon toss game

This is like an egg toss game but you won’t waste food and there’s less mess — assuming you play outside. Pair up the players and give them a filled water balloon each. The players must toss it between them, attempting not to drop it. If they drop the water balloon and it bursts, they’re out of the game. If it drops and doesn’t burst, they can pick it up and keep playing.

The last pair left in the game with an intact water balloon wins. You can make it more challenging for older kids by spacing them farther apart than younger kids, so it’s fairer for all players.

What you need for Easter games

Brach’s Classic Jelly Beans — 54 oz (Pack of 2)

These two bags of jelly beans contain roughly 6.75 pounds of beans total, which should be more than enough for any jelly bean-related games.

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Prextex Plastic Easter Eggs

With 36 plastic Easter eggs in a set, this should give you an ample amount for egg hunts, treasure hunts and so on. They come in six colors: orange, green, yellow, blue, pink and purple.

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