How do you throw the perfect Easter egg hunt? This post will walk you through how to host an Epic Easter Egg Hunt and pancake breakfast that everyone will love! Great tips to keep it stress free and fun with some free printables to boot!
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We threw our first Easter Egg Hunt Party last year and it was so much fun! I had never thought about throwing one before because there are a ton of free community and church Easter egg hunts. Why bother, right?
But since most of the hunts are free, some can get extremely overcrowded. Which I am not a fan of. Especially since one year we actually missed our community’s egg hunt because of the crowds.
We had left for the event with plenty of time to spare. But that year the word of that particular hunt had gotten out and I mean OUT. There were tons of people! The line of cars trying to get there from any direction stretched 10 blocks at least. Needless to say we missed the hunt even after they had postponed the start by 20 minutes. My boys were devastated and I felt horrible!
Thankfully tears were dried with the promise we would have our own small scale one at home.
>> check out my 16 insanely helpful Easter Egg Hunt Tips here!
How to Host an Epic Easter Egg Hunt
So the smaller affair without the massive crowds was one reason we wanted to host our own. But what really sparked the idea of throwing an Easter egg hunt, was my dear friend Jackie. She used to host one for a large group of family, friends, and neighbors every year. She did such a great job and everyone always had an enjoyable time!
We have since moved so thought it would be fun to start our own traditional egg hunt. And it was so much fun! It surprisingly was one of the easiest parties I have ever hosted and we are already making preparations for next year!
Along with posting several photos from the hunt, I thought it would be helpful to share some ideas for throwing your own Easter Egg Hunt.
1. Pick the Date & Location
Recreate the look:
How do you host an Easter egg hunt? First things first, you’ll need to pick a date and location for your egg hunt fun. It would also be a good idea to start compiling your guest list, because depending on the size of your group, you may choose to have it at a park, church property, or your own backyard. And if you are having the hunt outside, make sure you have a backup plan if the weather turns sour!
We opted to host it at our house in our little wooded area around back. The space was perfect for our group of families from the neighborhood and church.
What day should you do an Easter egg hunt? Nothing says you have to have it on the actual day of Easter, but you definitely can if you want! We scheduled our egg hunt festivities for the Saturday before. This way we kept the day of Easter focused on the special reason for that sacred day.
2. Send the Easter Egg Hunt Invites
I am a BIG fan of sending out electronic invites. They require a minimal amount of effort, provide an easy way to track RSVPs, and are free.
But sometimes when I feel in a creative mood, I’ll opt for the old school route of paper invites and design my own.
>> If you prefer the paper route, be sure to grab my FREE editable Easter Egg Hunt invites.
We like to get the word out about three weeks in advance. That seems to be a good amount of time for people to plan for the event but not too far in advance that people forget.
And be sure to utilize the invites by letting guests know of any extra details. For example, we informed our guests that it would be a pancake potluck breakfast and asked them to sign up for a food item. We also mentioned having them bring chairs or a picnic blanket. And gave them the friendly reminder to not forget their children’s Easter basket!
3. Egg Prep for the Easter Egg Hunt
– Fill the Eggs in Advance
It definitely wouldn’t be an egg hunt without the eggs!
How many eggs should each kid get at an Easter egg hunt? We calculated between 15 and 20 eggs per person for our Easter Egg Hunt. Hence why the RSVP’s are SO important! And with that many eggs, you really don’t want to wait until the last minute to fill them! We filled our eggs with a variety of Easter themed candies, but you can also include stickers, small toys, and a new fun one for us are Easter coupons. I designed free Easter coupons that you can grab here.
To avoid that stress, we filled our eggs two weeks prior to the event and recruited the help of our children. We popped in a movie to pass the time and made it a fun family affair! With everyone helping, it really didn’t take too long at all.
My husband and I did however wait until the morning of the hunt to hide the eggs. You never know what small creature may be creeping in the yard prior to!
– Not all Eggs are Created Equal!
Why are Easter eggs so expensive? The good quality ones are definitely a more spendy but will save you a ton of time and money in the long run if you reuse them.
We hide plastic eggs and a lot of them! I personally don’t want to spend the time carefully placing each individual egg down on the ground. And nobody likes their candy spilling everywhere during the hunt due to their eggs breaking open, because you know it’s inevitable that a few eggs are going to be dropped! That’s why I strongly dislike the flimsy plastic eggs that crack open waaaaay too easily.
I found these Easter eggs
It was a little investment to be sure. But we figured we would be hosting more Easter egg hunts in the future. And we would much rather spend the money one time than return year after year for cheap eggs that didn’t last more than one or two uses.
– Recycle Eggs
And since we wanted to reuse the eggs in years to come, I designed a sign which asked guests to empty, match, and then return their eggs after the hunt. We posted it above a cardboard box lined with a garbage bag for easy storage afterwards. You can download the printable Easter Egg drop off sign for free HERE.
4. Plan the Easter Egg Hunt Decor
I really enjoyed decorating for this party, probably because I knew I could use it again and again! You surely can’t go wrong with pastels, white accents, and a few bunnies here and there. And don’t forget about Easter themed printables! They can dress up an area so easily!
>> Download my free Easter Bunny Banner by clicking here.
And be sure to get creative! I made a pretty pastel backdrop with the use of twine, scissors, and several shades of pastel plastic tablecloths. It helped add color and also did a great job hiding our cement wall.
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Be careful displaying chocolate eggs anywhere near direct sunlight. Most of ours were cracked by the time the party ended! 😀
And all that I said previously about plastic eggs… well I did use cheap ones for a bit of decorating and they worked perfectly! I strung a piece of ribbon through the two holes on the top of the egg, tied a knot, and voilà! Easter tree ornaments.
5. Stagger the Start by Age Groups
To help the smaller kids have a fair chance against the big kids to collect a few eggs, we had different waves enter the hunt. The first wave was 2 & younger, second wave was 7 & younger, and the last wave was 8 & up. I chose those groups based on the number of children and their ages. So your grouping may look completely different, which is definitely okay! Maybe you have a cluster of older kids, so you would want a group for 12 and up.
This worked out really well! It gave the littles enough time to figure out how to put at least one or two eggs into their basket before the next wave joined them.
Some may ask, well is 12 too old for an Easter egg hunt? My personal answer is definitely not! If they want to participate, why stop them?! Why keep them from the fun just because they are a year or a few years older?
Another option would be to segment off different areas for the various age groups. I personally didn’t want to deal with the hassle of partitioning off separate sections and I think it’s fun to have all the kids together. But if you have a really large group, this alternative option may be a good idea!
6. Throw in a Golden Egg or two
How do you make an Easter egg hunt more fun? You throw in a few golden Easter Eggs! What could be more exciting than finding an egg with goodies in it? Spotting a golden egg that brings a prize!
What can I put inside a golden egg? Really anything you want but its fun to make it a little more special than what is inside all of the other Easter eggs. Since space is limited inside the egg due to the nature of its size, I opt for putting a golden ticket inside each golden egg (I had three golden eggs in the hunt). This allowed me the flexibility of giving prizes of any size. The golden ticket finder was then allowed to pick a prize from the golden egg prize basket.
The basket was filled with inexpensive fun prizes that the kids LOVED! The ‘golden egg’ just adds another element of excitement to the hunt.
>> Grab the free golden egg tickets and printables over here.
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7. Make it a Potluck
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We decided on serving a pancake breakfast. To relieve ourselves of some of the prep work and cost, we made it an ‘organized’ potluck. We asked each family to sign up to bring one item from a list of foods, such as fresh fruit, syrup and butter, orange juice, whipped cream, and a fruit sauce.
Our only task then was making the pancakes. This wasn’t any trouble at all because we resorted to a pancake mix (be sure to use milk instead of water for more flavor). We whipped up the mix early that morning. And began cooking the pancakes a little after the hunt started.
Recreate the look:
With 40+ people, we knew we wouldn’t be able to accommodate seating arrangements for everyone. So on our invitations, we asked guests to bring chairs or a picnic blanket. My husband made two makeshift tables using sawhorses and two large pieces of wood. I then dressed them up with colorful Easter tablecloths (like this one
I always loved that my friend Jackie wore bunny ears for her Easter egg hunt party so that everyone could spot her quickly. So I decided to follow her example.
Easter Egg Hunt Conclusion
Hopefully you gleaned a few great ideas for your upcoming Easter egg hunt. And if you have any tips and tricks to add, be sure to let me know in the comments below! I want to make this year’s hunt even better so could use any helpful advice you have!
🐰 Looking for more Easter printables and ideas? Below are some of my favorites!
We do a huge Easter Egg hunt for my grandkids every year. Instead of everyone having their own color, everyone has a color and a pattern of an egg they’re looking for, it makes it easier for the little kids to get enough eggs, and then they all get the same amount. Some of them we’ve had to sharpie on stripes, but totally worth it. This year will be extra fun because we finally got a dumpster rental to clear out the extra brush and tidy up the landscaping, so lots more places to hide that won’t cut up little hands as they’re reaching for eggs. Thank you for sharing, I’m going to need to get that chalk board signs for the food!
I have 13 grandkids and they will all go together. How did you find enough colours to give every person’s colour? Then they don’t have to scramble as much. Every person just looks for their own colour. Issue is finding enough colours ? Any ideas
Hi Frankie!
First off, congrats on 13 grandkids! That is awesome and I’m sure tons of fun! I actually didn’t go the Easter egg color route for each kid. But staggered the children by age so the young ones had more time to pick up eggs.
But if you did want to go the egg color route, you could either put two kids to each color and limit the number of eggs they pick up so all is equal. Or another option would be to search for different colored eggs. I really like these bold colored eggs that come in 7 different colors and then you could buy metallic Easter eggs finding some that come in at least 6 different colors and that’s enough different colors for all of your grandchildren! You might need to give them an egg to begin with so they know which color is theirs. 🙂 Hopefully that does the trick! Let me know what route you decide to take!
I hired someone dressed up as the Easter bunny and did face painting .
That is awesome Yvonne! Did you have a photo backdrop for pictures with the Easter bunny? Face painting would be so perfect and such a fun addition that the kids would love! Did you hire out for that as well?
That Easter Egg Hunt Party must have been amazing!!!!!
It was! 🙂
How do you politely tell people to leave the basket to use again the next year?
What did people use to take home their treats?
Hi Amelia!
That’s awesome that you provide Easter baskets for everyone! One thing you could do to tell people to leave their baskets, would be to announce to everyone right before the hunt begins about returning the baskets.
I’d turn my attention to the kids and ask them if they are excited to search for eggs and if they would like to have another hunt maybe next year. I don’t know of a single kid that says no to that! Then tell them to make that possible, we would need to use the plastics eggs and baskets again. So if they could please return the plastic eggs, matched back together and without the candy, as well as the baskets to the designated area after the hunt, that would be great!
I have a sign telling everyone where to place the eggs and you could have one for the baskets as well. Then after the hunt, I walk around admiring all the kid’s collection of candy/prizes and politely remind them to match up their eggs and return them to the spot I told them about earlier.
Depending on how much candy you predict the kids will be leaving with, you could grab a pack of Easter cellophane treat bags. Then stand where you want them to return everything and tell them you’ll give them their special Easter sack as soon as they return their eggs and basket. Or walk around and swap out their baskets for the baggies. If some kid hits the candy jackpot, you might want to have a plastic grocery sack on hand just in case!
Another idea would be to have the children decorate a brown lunch sack maybe before the hunt and then have them place their candy in that.
Hopefully that helps get your Easter baskets back! 🙂 Best of luck!
Cheers,
AJ