Planning Egg Hunt Details
Decide on the time and date. The first thing you need to do is decide on the date and time you want to have your Easter egg hunt. You should keep in mind that people often have family or religious plans the day of Easter. You may want to plan your egg hunt for the day before, the weekend before, or the weekend after Easter. Late morning or afternoon work well for the time of your egg hunt. These times give parents a chance to get their kids ready for the day, and younger children will be less cranky having just woken up or already had an afternoon nap.
Hide eggs according to the age of your guests. An Easter egg hunt is perfect for any age group. However, it's a good idea to keep the age of your guests in mind. Younger children will need the eggs to be hidden in places they can easily reach, and toddlers will likely need the eggs spread across the lawn. For older guests, you don't have to worry as much about your egg hiding location. Consider hiding the eggs in trees, bushes, on top of car tires, under or inside objects, and so on.
Choose your egg hunt location(s). You may want to centralize your egg hunt in one location, or you may want to plan a few separate courses. Separate courses can be especially useful when you have a wide age range of egg hunters. This way you can divide age groups by location. If you are planning to conduct the egg hunt in your yard, you may want to have a backup plan ready in case the weather turns nasty. This activity will vary according to age group, but you might consider Duck, Duck, Goose, board games, card games, or watching a movie. You can provide shade for younger children by putting up a large tent or stringing a tarp between posts, trees, or existing structures. Indoor Easter egg hunts will require you to remove furniture that might get in the way or be potentially dangerous. Pointy edged chairs and tables, glass knick-knacks, and similar items can be easily knocked over and cause harm.
Level the playing field for differing age groups. When you have a wide range of age groups taking part in the same Easter egg hunt, it might help to use strategies to keep things fair. For example, you might give younger age groups a head start or instruct older children to not collect eggs in plain sight. These strategies are also important to keep in mind for children with special needs who may need more time.
Set the boundaries of your egg hunt. The boundary will prevent children from wandering too far away while hunting for eggs. For an outdoor hunt, for instance, the boundary might be the backyard. Tell the kids that all the eggs are hidden within the backyard and that they will find nothing beyond the fence. For an indoor hunt, you might choose a few rooms for the hunt to take place in. Make sure all participating egg hunters know the boundaries clearly at the start of the game. This will help keep kids from wandering off and ensure better supervision and safety.
Inspect your egg hunting grounds. There may be hazards, like holes, dangerous garbage or litter, or even territorial wild animals, like snapping turtles or blue jays, which can negatively impact your egg hunt. Be sure you thoroughly walk the area to best prevent children from harm from these things. Beyond the human safety concern, if you are organizing an egg hunt for your company or church, these hazards can be a serious liability.
Prepare for additional hunters. This is less of an issue if you're having a closed Easter egg hunt for a specific group, like families in your company or church. But even at a closed hunt, families may bring friends, neighbors, or guests. Open egg hunts can have a large range of participants. It's better to be prepared with extra than to have children disappointed by a scant egg hunt. If you have a list of participants, you might predict that every third family will bring at least one guest, and plan additional eggs for these potential participants just in case. If you're having an open egg hunt, you can use previous years to predict participation. You should also take into account advertising and promotion. If you've promoted about twice as much as the year before, you may want to hide twice as many eggs. How many eggs you plan per hunter is completely up to your preference. Many families may come with baskets, which can make smaller quantities of eggs look sparse. To combat this, you may want to plan 10 - 15 eggs hidden per hunter.
Make a list or map of the egg hiding places. This will prevent you from losing eggs in your yard or the park, but this will also help you give hints if hunters are having difficulty. Sometimes hiding spots you might think obvious are missed. A list will also help you to make sure your eggs are spread across the hunting area so that more kids have a chance to find eggs. If you choose to make a map, it doesn't have to be completely accurate. You might sketch out the basic boundary and use simple shapes to represent things like trees and shrubs.
Selecting Prizes
Fill your eggs with candy. Small candies that fit inside your Easter eggs are a common prize for Easter egg hunts. When using candy as a prize, you should keep in mind the time of day. Holding your egg hunt around midday or early afternoon will be warmer and could result in melted chocolate. You should also take allergies into account. If you've included candies in your eggs that have a common allergen, like nuts, you should inform parents and egg hunters of this before starting.
Use dollar store prizes. At your local dollar store you may be able to find large packages of small figurines, stickers, temporary tattoos, or other toys that fit inside the Easter eggs you'll be hiding. Depending on the size of the prize, you may be able to include a few of these in each egg. Try to select packages of prizes that come in a wide variety. If all your eggs have the same item, children may be disappointed they don't have a unique prize.
Make your hunt clue based. This is an optional variation of the traditional Easter egg hunt. When using clues, you should try to keep egg locations separate to decrease the chances of a hunter or team finding an egg not their own. Coming up with lots of little clues can be difficult and time consuming. To make this easier on yourself, you may want your clue-based hunt to be done in groups. An example of a clue might look something like, "The next egg you are looking for doesn't like the sun and it sits like an acorn on the ground."
Scale your prizes according to difficulty. You may have a few eggs that are especially well hidden on your egg hunt course. For these eggs, you can give the finders an extra special prize, like an action figure, a doll, or movie theatre passes. Some of these extra special prizes might be difficult to fit in your eggs. In this case, you might put a slip of paper in the egg that says something like, "Give this paper to Mrs. Smith to get grand prize #1."
Increase competition with special eggs. You could hide some special eggs that look different from the rest, like “jeweled eggs” or “golden eggs.” At the start of the game, you could tell egg hunters that the person with the most special eggs gets a prize. To make things fair, you might have different special eggs for different age groups. The younger group may need to locate the jeweled eggs, while the older kids should be hunting for special golden eggs. You might surprise egg hunters with a “hard luck” prize at the end of the hunt. This way, you can give the child that finds the least number of eggs a bonus prize.
Coordinating Volunteers
Gather your volunteers. If you are planning an especially big Easter egg hunt, it may be too much for one person to handle. You might want to look for volunteers among your friends, neighbors, family, or church group. With a little bit of help, you'll be able to coordinate and execute your egg hunt better. Some people may be worried that they'll be asked to do too much. To get around this, you may want to be specific in your request for help, saying something like, "Would you help with our Easter egg hunt? I'll only need you for an hour on Sunday."
Give clear instructions to volunteers. Some volunteers may treat your egg hunt as more of a social event than a responsibility. By being clear with your requests, you'll send the message that if everyone doesn't do their part, the egg hunt won't be possible. For example, you might say, "Jane, I'll need you to help keep an eye on the older kids while they're egg hunting. They're a little rambunctious."
Check in with your volunteers frequently. This will help you have a more complete understanding of what still needs to be done. Some tasks may take longer than you expect, and by checking in with your volunteers, you'll know whether or not someone needs more help than you had initially planned.
Show your gratitude. You don't have to spend a lot of money giving your volunteers individual gifts, although if you did it would likely be appreciated. However, a simple "thank you" at the end of the hunt should be enough to let your volunteers know you were grateful for their help. To make volunteers feel a little extra special, you may want to send each an individual card in the mail. If your volunteers feel appreciated, it's likely they'll be willing to help you again.
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