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Crackin’ Easter activities

Thursday 23rd March, 2023

With Easter just around the corner, the team at Laser Learning wanted to share our favourite Spring activities for children of all ages – perfect for rainy days indoors or getting out and about in nature.



Spring scavenger hunt

Suggested age: Toddlers, children, and teens

Location: Outdoors (a garden or the local park)

Resources: A checklist, pen/pencil, bird book and binoculars (optional)

Spring is a wonderful time for nature and new life - beautiful flowers and trees begin to bloom again, birds begin nesting and are louder and livelier, and it is cherry blossom season. With days become longer and lighter, we have more time to be outdoors!



Take the kids on a nature walk and give them a list of things to find. This could include birds, insects, flowers, leaves, rocks, and feathers. You could even have them collect some of these items and use them for a craft activity later. Be sure to wash hands after picking up and handling any plant life or feathers.



You can create your own checklist and include some of these Spring sights:





(Left to right: Daffodils, chiffchaff, oak leaves, crocuses, goldfinch, cherry blossom, tulips, nesting blue tit, hazel catkins)



Or you can find a checklist online and print it out and take it with you. If you don’t have access to a printer, you can take a screenshot on your phone and refer back to that (if you work with children, be sure to read your mobile phone policy before doing this).



The Wildlife Trust has created a Spring flower spotter and Spring stuff wallchart that you may find useful.



Adapting the activity for the under 3’s: Search for flowers, leaves, rocks, and feathers yourself and pick them up and show them to the child. You may want to give them to the child to touch and feel the different textures, brush the child’s cheek with the feathers and leaves, and scrunch the leaves gently by their ears so they can hear the different sounds that fresh and dry leaves make.



Easter floral wreath making

Suggested age: Older children and teens

Location: Indoors or outdoors (in the garden)

Resources: Rattan wreath, ribbon, fresh Spring flowers and leaves, and scissors. Hot glue gun or Sellotape and floristry wire (optional).


Wreaths aren’t just for Christmas! A floral wreath hung on the front door is becoming a popular Easter decoration and great fun to make with the kids. Once you have bought your supplies (Hobbycraft has a nice selection of rattan wreaths and you can buy daffodils and tulips from the local supermarket) then you can follow the steps below to make your wreath:



1. Cut flower stems in half and start threading through the rattan – you may need to use floristry wire to secure in place. Work your way around the wreath in a clockwise direction.

2. Insert leaves evenly around the wreath

3. Take a length of Easter ribbon and fold it in half to form a loop. Glue it, stick it, or thread it to the back of your wreath to create a hanging loop.

4. Hang over your front door or a door in your house and enjoy!



Easter egg maths hunt

Suggested age: Children and teens

Location: Indoors or outdoors

Resources: Fillable plastic eggs, card or scraps of paper, pens. A prize for the winner (optional)


This is a twist on a classic Easter egg hunt and a great (chocolate-free!) game for teaching numeracy and listening skills. Steps below:



1. Write a list of 10 maths equations ranging from easy to challenging, depending on the age and maths levels of the children playing the game

2. The answers need to be written on individual cards or scraps of paper and put inside fillable plastic eggs. If you can’t find these eggs, you can just write the answers on foam eggs, wooden eggs, egg shapes cut out of card, or clean and dried egg shells.

3. Hide the eggs around the room or outside in the garden

4. Read out the equation to the children and ask them to go and find the answer. The first child to find the egg and bring it back gets to keep that egg. This can be a team game if there are lots of children playing.

5. The child with the most eggs by the end of the game is the winner



Easter baking

Suggested age: Toddlers, children and teens

Location: Indoors


Children love getting involved in the kitchen and this is the perfect time of year for baking some delicious traditional cakes and biscuits. Here are some egg-cellent Easter bakes from BBC Good Food with instructions for children:



Chocolate chip hot cross buns

Gluten-free lemony Easter chicks

Simple iced biscuits (we recommend using bunny, egg, or chick cookie cutters)

No-bake chocolate crispy cake nests (we recommend using Easter cupcake cases and popping some mini eggs on top)



If there has been more than enough chocolate and sweets eaten over Easter already, you could bake some salt dough eggs and paint them with the children once they’ve cooled.



Once the sweet treats have been made, you may wish to encourage sharing and thinking of others by taking some round to neighbours and relatives to brighten their day.



Adapting the activity for the under 3’s:: Young children will want to put everything in their mouths when they’re helping – you might want to give them their own bowl, utensils, and ingredients so they can follow along with you whilst you make the treats that other people will eat. You can sit them in their highchair to help or you could put a mat down on the floor and give them a tray to use so they can make a mess and it’s easy to clean. Be careful with recipes that use raw eggs or are too complex. Keep it simple!



Egg shell cress

Suggested age: Toddlers and children

Location: Indoors

Resources: Eggs, egg box or egg cups, cotton wool balls, paints and pens, soil, and cress seeds


A fun and engaging activity to develop children's interest in growing food and gardening. Steps below:



1. Carefully remove the tops from the eggs, leaving the bottom two-thirds of the shells intact

2. Empty the shells (save the eggs for another time), then carefully wash them out

3. Decorate the shells with pens or paint, then leave them to dry

4. Dip the cotton wool balls in a little water, squeezing off any excess. Place 1 ball inside each shell, then sprinkle 1 tsp cress seeds onto each one

5. Sit the filled shells in eggcups and leave in a dry, well-lit place for a week – a windowsill is perfect. Your cress will start to grow within a few days.



Extending the activity: As you harvest the cress, look at the roots that have formed in the cotton wool. Talk about these roots being like straws that the plant uses to suck up the water. Compare how a plant drinks water to how we drink water.



Other Easter activities and games to try:



Bunny drawing and hand print bunny

Get children to draw round their hands with palm up, fingers together, and thumb out at an angle. Turn the thumb part into ears, the hand into a rabbits body, and the bit under the thumb into the face. Lastly, draw or paint a bobble tail on (you could also stick on a cotton ball). You could also create a handprint bunny by brushing paint on the child’s hand (all fingers apart from the thumb) and getting them to press their hand down on a piece of card. The fingers become the ears and you can draw a face on the palm.



Mini eggs game
Tear open a couple of packets of mini eggs and scatter them on a table. Give each child a pair of chopsticks and ask them to try and pick up the eggs one by one.



Easter egg stained glass windows
Cut out an egg shape and then cut out shapes inside it by folding and cutting little triangles or by using a craft knife (adult or supervised use only). Glue cellophane, sweet wrappers, or brightly coloured tissue paper behind the egg. Punch a hole at the top of the egg and thread a ribbon through so you can hang it over window handles. Alternatively, you can stick to the window using white tac or glue dots.



We hope you enjoy these activities and they’re a good way to bond and giggle with children over the Easter break. If you would like to find out more about playing and learning in nature, or activities and games you can try at any time of the year then you may wish to take our short courses on:



Outdoor play

Forest schools and outdoor learning

Play is fun-damental to learning and development

I made a unicorn

A magical place to learn

Facilitating play in the playground for SEND students