Easter egg hunt for children without chocolate

Easter is great fun for children, and not just because of chocolate. I think it is important to teach children why we celebrate Easter, whatever your religious beliefs – but for our family, as we don’t practice any religion, we don’t spend a lot of time on that aspect.

My four year old daughter is mainly looking g forward to the Easter Bunny arriving and bringing chocolate eggs, which is fair enough for a child of her age I think! I’ve tried for the last couple of years to make Easter fun for her, particularly when we were in lockdown, by doing crafts and putting up decorations.

This year my sister and five year old niece are staying with us over Easter and I decided to do an Easter egg hunt for them around the house (and/or garden if the weather is good enough).

I didn’t want to hide chocolate eggs as I knew my daughter would already get enough chocolate Easter eggs from us and our family, so I bought some plastic eggs that you can hide indoors or outdoors. They open so you can also put little things inside them, which could work for chocolates or sweets or tiny gifts, but also for puzzle pieces, clues, parts of a game or even letters and numbers as a fun learning aid.

I also decided to get both girls a few little non-chocolate gifts from the Easter bunny with the original intention of them being the prize at the end of the egg hunt, but I realised I had so many bits and bobs that it would be fun to actually make them part of the hunt.

Last year I printed out some little slips from the internet where you could write in your own clues, but this year I bought a lovely little set of printed cards from “Little Miss Party Perfect” via Facebook, for just £4.

There are ten cards with rhyming clues and another card listing the places to hide your eggs, I.e. the answers to the clues. The clues are nicely written and crucially, the hiding places are straightforward and would work in any home. The cards are really pretty too and I think my daughter will love them!

I haven’t decided yet if I will hide plastic eggs and gifts, or just the gifts. I wrapped each gift in yellow tissue paper – you can get Easter wrapping paper but it is harder to find and more expensive. I have two of everything and actually switched out two of the gifts after I took the photo below, as I had forgotten about a couple of other things I had bought.

If you are in need of suggestions, here are some Easter gifts for an Easter egg hunt without chocolate:

– pencil with Easter chick eraser, Flying Tiger

– grow your own cress in an egg shell, 50p from Flying Tiger

– Easter themed plastic bowl and cup – these were £1 each from Iceland and came in two different designs

– Easter stickers – these were 19p from Partyrama 

– Mini Easter colouring book, 29p from Partyrama 

– Bunny ears hairband, 75p from Shein 

I initially wrapped a couple of things to share but then swapped these out. If you are doing a hunt for siblings then you could have a couple of things to share e.g.

– Easter themed photo booth props from Flying Tiger 

Orchard Toys egg surprise game £6.99

And if you do want to include a few chocolate things, you can get egg hunt sets in many shops where you get a bag of 20 or so hollow chocolate eggs, but that was much more than I wanted. Instead I bought

– Mini smarties bunny 50p from Tesco

– Barbie chocolate lolly, £1.50 for three from M&S

For the prize at the end of the hunt I have bought both girls a small Easter egg.

And don’t forget your Easter basket to collect the eggs or prizes along the way! Lots of shops sell little wicker baskets with handles, or felt baskets that look like a garden or a chick, and I’ve also seen decorated metal buckets for collecting eggs. I bought two of these little canvas bags that come with a set of pens to colour in yourself, which also makes a fun craft to do. And definitely takes the focus off chocolate a little bit. And the final touch is some large cardboard bunny footprints I got last year, to show that the Easter bunny has been!