FUN ACTIVITIES TO DO WITH CHILDREN AT THE Easter

season

Organize an alphabet easter egg hunt

Do your kids love to do games? Would you like to make an adventurous , playful and intelligent egg hunt?

Kids love the excitement of the search and the sweet treasure found inside their plastic eggs.

It’s easy , fun and useful for their development.

Play & Learn. It will give your kids an opportunity to use their brains and burn some energy while they search for eggs that contain letters of the alphabet.

Materials You will need:

• 20-26 empty plastic eggs

• Prizes to put in the eggs

• A dry-erase marker to write on the eggs

• A basket or bag for egg-collecting

Preparation time:

30-60 minutes - this is one of those activities in which the preparation time could possibly take longer than the actual game, because it is just as fun

Activity time: 20-40 minutes, depending on how well the eggs are hidden

Location: Inside and/or outside

Set up your teams 1. Split your group into two teams

One team hides the eggs and the other team will search for them. Each team will require some knowledge of the alphabet, so

you want to make sure there is a parent or older child paired up with prereaders.

In this game it is just as fun to hide as to find, so here are a

couple of ways you can give both teams a chance to hide and seek the eggs:

• Split the alphabet (A-M, N-Z).

• Split the location: one team hides eggs outside, while the other team hides eggs indoors (use two sets of eggs or split the alphabet). You can search all at once or take turns searching.

• Play one round, switch team roles and play again.

• No matter how you scramble it, this hunt can take as little or as much time as you want… it’s up to you and your family to decide.

Choose hiding places 2. Brainstorm Alphabet Hiding Places

Grab a pen, paper and your family.

Brainstorm ideas for hiding places that begin with each letter of the alphabet.

This is a chance to be creative and clever about your hiding places. Depending upon where you live or what’s in or near your home, you could come up with something different and really elaborate on the list. For example, if your dog’s name was “Fido” you could hide the egg for letter F near his dog bed or dog dish.

You may decide to skip letters like Q, X and Z, especially if you

are playing with younger kids.

You can split into teams for the brainstorm, especially if you decide to

divide the hunt into indoors and out. Or you can brainstorm as a family.

Writtingthe letters 3. Write Letters on the Eggs and Fill Them Use your dry-erase marker to write a different letter of the alphabet on each egg. Note: don’t mark down letters for eggs that you don’t think you will find an alphabetical place to hide.

Fill each egg with a prize. These can be healthy treats, stickers or small toys instead of candy. If you want to add a bonus element, put some jigsaw puzzle pieces in each egg. At the end of the hunt, you and your family can take the pieces and do a puzzle together.

You can also put some jokes inside them. Here are some jokes you can use: http://cdn.mykidsadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Easter-Egg-Jokes-Printablepdf1.pdf

SETTING RULES 4. Set ground rules

To make sure the game is fun and safe for everyone playing, gather everyone together and set some ground rules and expectations.

• For example, no hiding eggs anywhere gross. It is okay to

hide it next to a garbage can, but not inside it.

• Search eggs in the correct order, going from A to Z. For

example, if you are looking for the “B” egg and happen to see the “Y” egg on your way, you can’t collect it yet!

• Hide the eggs in a place where the people on the search team have a fair chance to find them.

Team members need to be able to see and reach the eggs.

• Hide the eggs only in an area where everyone is allowed to go. If kids aren’t permitted to go in the garage or in

the home office, don’t hide eggs there.

Hidingthe eggs 5. Hide your Easter eggs

This is the chance for the egg hiding team to have some fun. Hide your eggs.

As you begin hiding, you might find some new places to hide the eggs.

Remember, hide each egg in a place that corresponds with the correct letter of the alphabet.

Hunting eggs 5. Start the hunt

Egg hunting team: make sure you collect the eggs in alphabetical order.

You may want to provide younger kids with a written copy of the alphabet to help keep them going in order. It’s also fun to sing (and re-sing) the alphabet song to keep the little ones on task.

The hunt can be as easy or as difficult as you want it to be.

See you in next games!