1. Glow in the dark egg hunt – For an egg hunt with a bit of a twist, do it in the dark!  Take a plastic fillable egg (Hobbycraft sell 30 for £3) and pop an LED tea light inside to light it up.  Then pull the curtains, turn off the lights and hide lots of them around the house.  If you have older kids to entertain, why not do it in the garden after dark.

2. Egg Decoration – A true classic, there are so many ways to decorate your eggs.  We love gently shaking ours in a container filled with rice and food colouring to get this lovely effect.  Then sticking on feathers and sequins and even pom-poms.

3. Egg Tapping/ Egg Dump – This game is known by lots of different names but it’s a real favourite in our house.  All participants will need a hard-boiled egg.  Then in a series of rounds, two players must ‘fight to the end’ by repeatedly knocking the pointed ends of their eggs together, until one of the eggs cracks.  When your egg cracks, you’re out of the game.

The overall winner is the one whose egg succeeds in breaking the greatest number of other eggs.  You can make it more fun by decorating your egg, giving it a name and even making up your own entry music as your egg contender enters the ring like a champion boxer!

4. Treasure Hunt – Why not make up a little treasure hunt with clues.  If you’re feeling extra creative, turn your clues into riddles.  You could even hide them inside plastic eggs.

5. Bunny Race – A twist on the sack race.  Give each person taking part a pair of bunny ears and a pillowcase and they’re all set.

6. Guess how many eggs are in the jar – This does run the risk of meaning there’s a lot of chocolate in the jar, but you don’t just have to fill it with mini-eggs.  You could put some bigger polystyrene eggs or plastic eggs in there.

7. Egg toss – Have each partner stand on opposite sides and throw an egg back and forth. Step back farther after each throw and see who can keep the egg from cracking to the floor.  If you don’t want to use eggs, use water balloons instead.  Warning: this one can get very messy 🙂

8. Egg and spoon race – The old school classic always goes down well.  If you don’t want to waste more eggs, small water balloons are a great fun alternative.

9. Hungry bunny bean bag toss – Draw a rabbit on a piece of large cardboard then cut out a mouth large enough so that beanbags can be thrown through it. If you don’t have beanbags, rolled up socks can make good alternatives!

10. Tiny egg pick-up game – Fill a bowl with jelly beans.  Each player must use a straw to suck up as many beans as possible in 60 seconds.  For an alternative, instead of a straw give each player a pair of chopsticks.

11. Egg rolling – There are lots of fun ways you can do an egg roll and lots of families have their own traditions.  It works best on a hill if there’s one nearby.  Mark a start line at the top of the hill and a finish line at the bottom.  Each contestant decorates a hard-boiled egg so that it’s easily recognisable and then lines up at the start.  The aim is to roll your egg down the hill without it breaking.  The winner is the one that makes it to the bottom of the hill first, without breaking.

If you don’t have a hill get the contestants to roll their egg with a spoon, stick or even their nose…just not their hands.

12. Pin the tail on the Easter bunny – Who needs a donkey when a rabbit and a cotton wool tail will do!

13. Easter Egg Piñata – Fill a deflated balloon with as many jellybeans or smarties as possible, then blow it up so that the sweets rattle around inside it.  Next, dip strips of newspaper into PVA glue and stick them to the balloon, covering the whole thing so there are no holes.  Set it aside to completely dry.  Once it’s gone hard, stick a pin through it to pop the balloon.  It’s then ready to decorate in any way you want and attach a tie.  For maximum impact, make several and let all the kids go nuts at once.

14. Ten Pin Bunny Bowling – Take a standard set of children’s plastics skittles, if you don’t already have some you can get a set from all the usual places.  Draw a rabbit’s face and whiskers on the front of each and add cardboards ears and a cotton wool tail. If you don’t have skittles you can always use paper cups and draw a bunny face on them.

15. Pass the Easter carrot – Players must pass the easter carrot (an orange sausage-shaped balloon) between their legs from one person to the other without using their hands.  Just don’t drop the carrot!

We love hearing about your favourite ways to entertain the kids.  If you’ve got some Easter Games to recommend, share them in the Wharfedale Mumbler Chat Group