By A. Noelle

Celebrate an egg-citing Easter with your nieces and nephews by having them participate in some of these fun games that will keep them learning while they move!

1. Egg-Hunting for Numbers
As in a traditional egg hunt, your nieces and nephews will be looking for the eggs that you hide around your house and yard. The twist is that the eggs will have simple mathematical equations painted on them (e.g., 2+2=?) that the kids will have to solve in order to win a prize at the end. You can decide whether the reward, such as a cash prize, goes to the one with the most eggs collected or the most equations solved. To simplify this game, nieces and nephews are allowed to hunt for as many eggs as they can find before attempting to solve the math problems.

2. E is for Egg Toss
Set up about five wicker baskets at one end of your lawn; place each a little further from the one before. Then designate a spot from which the kids will toss their plastic eggs. When the first player goes to toss an egg, he or she will yell out a letter of the alphabet and provide a word that starts with that letter (e.g., B is for Bunny). The next player will continue with the next letter in the alphabet. Should anyone miss a basket, the next player will have to redo the letter and come up with a new word. Points are awarded for how far players can toss the eggs and how creative they can be in the words they provide.

3. Egg Scramble
This game works well with teams if you’re planning on having a bunch of kids over for your Easter celebration. First, write out some simple words on construction paper and cut out the letters. Then place the pieces into plastic eggs. Place the plastic eggs into a large basket, and put it in the middle of your lawn or living room. Your nieces and nephews will have 1-2 minutes (or 5 minutes if you have enough eggs) to run and unscramble as many words as possible. Each team may only retrieve one egg at a time, so the kids will have to work together to figure out their words quickly!

4. Barnyard Animals Guessing Game
Each niece or nephew gets a flashcard with a kind of barnyard animal written on the front. Tape the flashcards onto each kid’s forehead without letting him or her see which animal is written on the card. Other kids must act out the animal written on the flashcards so that the players can guess which animals are on their foreheads.

5. Bunny Hop Relay
In this race, nieces and nephews will be handing off carrots as batons to their teammates. Set up a basket of carrots for each team at the start of the race, and place an empty basket for the kids to fill at the other end. The first team to bunny-hop the most carrots to the end of the yard wins. While running, team members must yell out the number of carrots they have successfully carried over to the other side. To make the game even more interesting, Aunties can provide the kids with bunny-eared headbands!

Published: March 26, 2013