Easter activities 2023: things to do with kids including Easter egg hunts, Easter bonnets, and decorating eggs

It’s quite early in the calendar this year, and Easter 2023 is almost here. Your children will be eagerly awaiting two weeks off school, or may have already started their break, although the exact holiday dates will depend on where you live in the UK and your child’s specific school.

The Easter holidays can pose a headache for parents as they try to think of ways to keep their little ones entertained.

So if you are stuck for ideas, here’s a list of fun and easy Easter activities for children to enjoy over the break. Some require adult supervision, but not all.

• Make Easter bonnets

The Easter bonnet is a popular type of clothing associated with this time of year and they’re fun to make at home with your little ones. All you need is the actual bonnet as a base and then you can add any type of decoration you want, from tissue paper to felt and cotton wool. Handily, Hobbycraft have put together a guide for how to make an Easter bonnet at home.

• Decorate eggs

Decorating eggs for Easter is a great way to get the kids crafting and it allows you to make seasonal decorations for your home at the same time. You’re likely to already have eggs in your fridge and lots of crafting materials that can be used to decorate, including paints, felt tip pens and glitter. The hardest bit will be removing the yolk and egg white first. BBC Good Food have put together a guide on how to create decorated Easter eggs.

• Set up an Easter egg hunt

Planning an Easter egg hunt couldn’t be easier as you can do it in the comfort of your own home. If the weather is good then you can do it in your garden, or if the weather doesn’t lend itself to outdoor activities, or you don’t have a garden, then you can do it in your house. All you have to do is hide Easter eggs in various places and then see how long it takes little ones to find them. You could also join an organised Easter egg hunt, like the ones organised by the National Trust.

• Make Easter cards

Sending Easter cards is a lovely way of sharing good wishes with loved ones, and there’s no card more appreciated than a handmade one. A card can be easily made using materials you likely already have in the house for your children’s craft projects, such as brightly coloured card or paper, pencils and crayons. Paperchase have put together an easy tutorial on how to make an Easter card that loved ones will treasure.

• Have an Easter competition

There are a couple of games you could play with the little ones that involve eggs - the hard boiled kind, not the chocolate variety.

The first is egg rolling. All you need is a hard surface, such as a hill or a ramp, and then the premise is very simple - set them off rolling and see which one reaches the bottom first. Make sure the youngsters have decorated their eggs beforehand though so you can tell whose is whose!

The second competition you could have is the classic egg and spoon race. Usually seen on fields during school sports’s days, there’s nothing stopping you having a race in your own back garden. You don’t have to boil the eggs for this one first if you don’t want to, but it’s less messy if you do.

• Bake Easter cakes 

One of the best things about Easter is all the chocolate we get to eat, completely guilt-free. Second only to Christmas, Easter is the best time of year if you have a sweet tooth. There are lots of different sweet treats you could make yourself, including the classic Easter egg nest cake, or carrot cake cupcakes, as well as bunny paw biscuits and a leftover Easter egg brownie.

• Make an Easter basket

Easter baskets are a must for little ones over the Easter weekend. Depending on the traditions in your household, they could use them during an egg hunt to hold their finds. Or, they could leave it at the bottom of their bed on Saturday and awake on Easter Sunday morning to find it bursting with treats - filled by you, of course.

Making their own Easter basket out of paper is a fun craft activity that will build excitement for the holiday too. Here’s a tutorial for how to make your own Easter basket.

• Draw bunnies and chicks

An easy and simple activity, but one that will be loved by children of all ages. They can use their colouring pencils, crayons, paints or markers to create their own images of bunnies, chicks and lambs themselves, or if you prefer you can print off one of these great Crayola colouring pages for them to add some colour too. It’s sure to keep them occupied for a while, and when they’re finished you can proudly display their creations on the wall or the fridge.

• More craft ideas

There are a few other craft ideas you can do with your children this Easter, but they will need your help to make sure they are safe. You could make an Easter wreath to hang on the door, make an Easter bunnies garland to decorate your home, or create animals made of pom poms which could become your Easter table centrepiece.

• Get out in the garden

As the weather improves, it’s a great time to get out in the garden and Easter could be a perfect opportunity to teach children about different plants and vegetables by growing your own. You could make a mini salad box with them and you could even use any egg boxes emptied by other Easter activities to create the perfect place to grow seeds - and this could be made even more fun with the addition of googly eyes. You could also ask them to paint a plain plant pot and then help them to plant some beautiful flowers that they can watch bloom over the spring.

• Make some food

Easter is synonymous with chocolate, but it’s not the only delicious food we can enjoy. Children could enjoy decorating a gingerbread Easter egg, or you could both take inspiration from the Italian and Greek cultures and learn how to bake traditional Easter bread.