Easter Party Games for Kids

Egg Commands

Before the party, write down several silly commands on small pieces of paper, fold them up and place them inside of colored, plastic eggs. Make sure you have as many eggs as you have players. Divide kids into two teams. Assign one adult judge per team. Fill one basket for each team with the plastic eggs.

On the word, “go!” the first player from each team must race to the basket, choose an egg and perform the command. The judges must determine if the command is completed, and when it is, will signal the player to run back and tag the next player in line. If a player can’t complete a command after two tries, they must place it back in the basket and return to the back of the line. The first team to complete all of their egg commands wins the game.

Some egg command suggestions include:

• Hop like the Easter bunny.
• Shake your bunny tail.
• Name three kinds of Easter candy.
• Juggle two eggs.
• Roll around as an egg dropped on the ground.

You can also add props to the game to make the commands goofier. For instance, supply a couple of bunny costumes that kids must wear when performing their tasks.

Easter Bingo

Make an Easter bingo card out of cute, clip art images. Mix the order up for each card you print. Cut up one card and place the images in an Easter basket. Give the kids jelly beans to use as bingo markers. Pull one image at a time out of the basket and show it to the kids. They must mark the spot that matches. Play until someone gets a bingo.

Basket Head Relay Race

Divide kids into two teams. Set up a racecourse that starts and ends at the same spot. Along the course, place two colored eggs in as many spots as you have players. Have one player from each team stand at the start/finish line. Give those players a basket. Then, have one player from each team stand at the intervals where you’ve placed the eggs.

When you signal the start of the race, the two players at the starting line must put the baskets on their heads and hop like bunnies to their closest teammates. Their teammates will pick up the eggs and place them in the baskets. The baskets are then handed off to the waiting players, who also put them on their heads and hop like bunnies to the next set of players. The race continues with the collecting of eggs and handing off of the baskets to the next players. The first team to collect all of their eggs and hop with the baskets on their heads to the finish line wins.

Runaway Eggs

For this game of tag, the person who is “it” is the bunny, and must wear bunny ears. Everyone else is a runaway egg. The bunny has to gather his eggs into the basket. Place a hula hoop on the ground to serve as the basket, or mark off a circle or square. When the bunny tags an egg-player, that player must go and stand in the basket. Play until all of the eggs have been collected. Then assign a new player to be the bunny.

Jelly Bean Race

Fill two baskets each with the same amount of jelly beans. Place them side-by-side on a table. Divide players into two even teams. Have the teams line up behind a starting point that is several feet away from the jelly bean table. Give each team an empty basket and a spoon.

The first player in line for each team must race to the table and place as many jelly beans as they can on their spoons. They must then race back and dump their jelly beans into the empty basket and hand the spoon off to the next player, who has to do the same. Play continues in this manner until one team has transferred all of their jelly beans. If a runner drops any jelly beans in the course of the race, they must go back and start over.

Decorate the Giant Egg

Divide kids into two teams. Give each team a white garbage bag that has arm and leg holes cut out of it, several bags of Easter grass, and a few rolls of colored streamers.

Teams will choose one player to be their egg. That player will put on the garbage bag. The remaining team members race to stuff their egg full of Easter grass and decorate it by wrapping it with the colored streamers.

Blind Taste Test

Challenge their taste buds while delighting those sweet teeth with this fun Easter game. Before the game, gather several different types of Easter candy. Cut them into small pieces to make it more challenging (as well as to limit the amount of sugar intake).

Blindfold players and offer them a taste of each piece of candy. As they taste, ask them to identify the name of the candy. A player scores one point for each correct guess. The player with the highest score after everyone has had an equal amount of tries is the winner.

This game can also be played with jelly beans only. Choose a variety of the gourmet flavored jelly beans and have kids guess the flavor of each.

Easter Basket Scavenger Hunt

Before the party, gather two sets of items you might find in an Easter basket. Hide the items around the yard or party space. Divide players into two teams and give them each a list of the items they must find, including the baskets. Start them off with a clue to the whereabouts of the basket, so they can use it to carry the remaining items. You can also leave additional clues to the remaining items at each hiding spot. The challenge is to be the first team to return with all of the items in your basket.

Peep Eating Race

Use ribbon to hang as many marshmallow chicks as you have players from the ceiling. Have each player stand next to a peep. On “Go!” the players must eat the peeps without using their hands. The first player to finish a peep wins.

Jelly Bean Toss

Line up a few empty Easter baskets. Mark a standing point that is a few feet away from the baskets (the distance will depend on the age group). Have kids take turns standing behind the line and attempting to toss the jelly beans into the baskets. Players score one point per jelly bean they land in a basket.

Eggs in a Haystack

Wrap two large boxes in spring-colored paper. Fill them with Easter grass. Divide kids into two teams. Bury one colored egg per player in the grass. Line the teams up and have them race, relay-style to retrieve an egg from the box. The bigger the boxes and the more grass you use, the more challenging this game will be.

Bunny Pokey

You’ll have to sing this bunny version of the Hokey Pokey for the kids to dance along to:

You put your bunny foot in; you put your bunny foot out,
You put your bunny foot in, and you shake it all about. You do the bunny pokey, and you hop yourself around, that’s what it’s all about!

More commands:

• Put your bunny ears in.
• Put your bunny tail in.
• Put your bunny nose in.
• Hop your whole bunny self in.

Easter Bonnet

This game is similar to hot potato. Have kids sit in a circle. Play music and have them pass around an Easter bonnet. As each player receives the bonnet, he must put it on his head, then take it off and pass it to the next player. When the music stops, the player wearing the bonnet is out. That player must have her picture taken wearing the bonnet before giving it back to the circle for play to continue. Make this game, even more, fun by decorating the Easter bonnet in as creative or silly a fashion as you can.

Musical Easter Baskets

This game is based on the concept of the classic, Musical Chairs, but with an Easter-themed twist. Instead of lining up chairs, line up Easter baskets, making sure you have one less than there are players. Play “The Bunny Hop” and have kids hop around the baskets as the music plays. When the music stops, each kid must pick up a basket. The player left without a basket is out, another basket is removed, and play continues this way until only one player remains.

Decorate an Easter Tree

To make your Easter tree, you can place a block of foam (found in the floral section of craft stores) in a decorative pot, and then “plant” a small tree branch in the foam. Cover the base of the foam with artificial Easter grass. Have the kids decorate cardstock paper that has been cut into the shape of eggs. They can use decorating items such as crayons, colored markers, rubber stamps, stickers, and glitter. Punch a hole in each paper egg and feed a length of ribbon through so they can hang their egg ornaments on the tree.

Easter Pinata

Always a hit at kids’ parties is the pinata game. Fill an Easter pinata, such as a bunny or Easter egg with treats and token prizes. One fun idea is to fill plastic eggs with treats and then fill the pinata with the eggs. Blindfold kids and have them whack away at the pinata until it breaks, releasing the treats for them to claim.

Bunny Hop-Scotch

Draw a hopscotch board using bunny heads in place of the traditional square boxes. Instead of a rock, use a jelly bean to play the hopscotch game.

Blind Bunny

Have your party guests sit around a table. Give them each a piece of paper and a crayon. Blindfold them or ask them to close their eyes and draw per your instructions:

1. Draw a circle.
2. Draw two bunny ears on the circle.
3. Draw a bunny’s nose in the circle.
4. Draw bunny’s eyes in the circle.
5. Draw a bunny’s mouth and teeth.
6. Draw a bunny’s whiskers.
7. Write your name below the bunny’s head.

Players open their eyes and see if they were able to draw a bunny while blindfolded. The player that draws the best bunny then wins.

Plastic Egg Race

Divide the party guests into two teams. Line them up and fill the arms of the first players in line with plastic Easter eggs. Those players have to walk or run to a designated spot a few feet away from the starting line, then turn around and return to their teams. If a player drops any of their eggs, they must stop to pick them up (trying not to drop anymore in the process). Upon returning to their teammates, players must pass the armload of eggs to the next players in line. The race continues until all of the players have carried the eggs. The first team to complete the relay race wins.

The distance of the relay and the amount of eggs placed in the children’s arms will depend on the age of the players. You want to give them enough eggs to make it a challenge without being too overwhelming.

Hop-A-Thon

This contest will see which player can hop the most times in a set amount of time. Start with a timer set for two minutes. Have parents count how many times their child can hop before time is up. The three or four players with the most hops move on to the next round, where the timer is set for one minute. The top two hoppers from that challenge move on to the final, 30-second hopping round, which determines the winner of the hop-a-thon.