Easter egg hunts are a beloved tradition, and there are so many festive ways to pull them off.
Hunts can be simple to set up, they encourage kids to burn off sugar-fueled energy and it may be the one time of year when no one complains about "cleaning up."
While you can always scatter real or plastic eggs throughout your yard or home and call it a day, here are other fun ways to embrace bunny season.
In this egg hunt, everyone is a winner.
Come up with enough awards for your whole crew -- "Most collected eggs" or "Most determined egg hunter," so kids earn accolades along with candy.
Check out this tutorial from Lovely Indeed for the cutest DIY trophies.
Assign kids to work in twos and blindfold one member of each party. The person who can see instructs their partner on where to find eggs using "hot" and "cold" clues.
It's best to do this hunt on a clear, flat surface to minimize injuries.
Position two kids together and use a beach towel or a bandana to tie their middle legs together, just as you would for a three-legged race.
This time, it's not a race to the finish line -- it's a race to find eggs!
To "change" up the hunt for older kids, ditch the candy and fill eggs with pennies or nickels. To make things really exciting, include a dollar bill inside a few eggs.
Write various numbers (from 1 to 10) on scraps of paper and place one number inside every egg.
When all the eggs are found, kids tally their numbers and whoever has the highest total wins!
Crank up the challenge by hiding eggs in the scenery.
Drop green eggs in a grassy yard or neutral-colored eggs in a canyon. If your hunt is indoors, sneak a blue egg into a blue pot or place a yellow egg near bananas in the kitchen.
Fill Easter eggs with gag gifts like mini whoopee cushions, plastic bugs, hand buzzers and written jokes to make your kids say, "LOL!"
Why hunt during the day when you can hunt at night?
Wrap a small glow-in-the-dark item, like a bracelet, around each egg for visibility. Or, hide regular eggs and give your kids flashlights to find them in the dark.
Have kids write down their wishes (ie: a pizza delivery or a trip to the bowling alley) on slips of paper packed inside eggs.
Here's the twist: Parents have to find the eggs. For any eggs that are never recovered, adults must honor whatever request was written inside.
Place one letter from a word or a phrase in each egg. After the kids find all the eggs, see how long it takes them to unscramble the message!
This is perfect for kids who can't yet read, but can recognize and name their colors: Give each child an assigned color and have them find eggs in that particular shade.
Or, hide colorful eggs and compete to finish the rainbow according to "ROYGBIV," the acronym for red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
You don't need a goose to find a golden egg.
Throw a golden egg into the mix and the person who finds it receives a monetary reward or a one-time later bedtime.
Fill eggs with puzzle pieces and once all the eggs are found, kids can start putting the puzzle together. If there are any missing pieces, the egg hunt resumes.
Create an Easter-inspired treasure hunt by filling eggs with clues and give kids a hand-drawn map that leads to a buried treasure.
Not only is the activity fun, it gets kids excited about problem-solving.
Place a paper with activity instructions inside each egg (five jumping jacks, two summersaults, running one lap), then split kids into teams.
Each time a team member finds an egg, everyone on that team completes the activity inside.
Have kids find eggs the traditional way, but to win the highly-coveted Easter basket (the grand prize), give them spoons with which to balance their eggs and yell, "Ready, set, go!"
Whoever runs the furthest without dropping their egg gets the bunny basket.
Have kids decorate empty egg crates with stickers, glitter, and markers, then place them at a starting line.
The first child to fill their egg crate with the most eggs wins a prize.
Instead of racing around to find eggs, kids hop around like bunnies.