Help! How to host a neighborhood Easter egg Hunt?

[dixie]

I am going to be hosting a neighborhood Easter Egg hunt. there will be divisions for specific ages. How many eggs should we fill? What should we stuff them with? Wrapped candy etc?

Any suggestions are appreciated!

 

[laura1957]

My sister and I do a Easter egg hunt at my mother's house every year for the family kids and whatever neighborhood kids are around. Generally 8-11 family kids and another 4-6 extras, nothing big but they all enjoy it.

We do 2 - one for the younger group (1-5) and another for the older kids - up to 10, 11 or whenever THEY decide they are too old. This year my sister's 11 year old twins are deciding if they are joining the hunt or helping out. The OLDER kids (teens) get to hide the eggs - and they have just as much fun. We fill some of them with a piece or 2 of wrapped candy but most are filled with small toys - bouncy balls, stickers, plastic snakes, dinosaurs or farm animals... usually dollar tree items or things from Oriental Trading Co or somewhere like that. For the younger ones even small stuffed animals can be squisked into the eggs. For the VERY young we usually hold something back to slip in their basket since they cannot most any of the hidden treasures. We also have three 8 month old babies this year so they will need something special.

After the hunt there is always some trading of some of the finds between them and they also enjoy THAT just as much.

 

[elaine]

I am doing it this year

It is our neighborhood (200 homes) sponsored Egg Hunt/Party--about 100 kids came last year. I get 10 eggs per kid, age groups under 3, 3-5, 6-8, 9+. No chocolate in eggs--it melts. I am doing 30+ stickers in random eggs that they bring to a table and choose a prize---it can be as simple as you want--they just like getting to choose a prize--dollar store and five below are good prize places. For longer events, you can add crafts and refreshments. have fun. Elaine

 

[Stricky]

My Rotary club does an Easter hunt. We had 10,000 plastic eggs last year. We put one piece of candy in each. We divide a field in to sections for different age groups. They are gone in less then 3 minutes (more like 40 seconds).

 

[Tacoma]

One of the things that always bugged me about Easter egg hunts was that a few kids (mostly the older ones) found most of the eggs. Since I only had around 10-12 kids I always bought those plastic eggs you can fill at Michael's and then put the same type of candy in the same colored egg. I used plastic if they weren't individually wrapped. Then the rule was you could only pick up one of each color. Even the small kids tend to be good with colors so they could figure it out. That way everyone got the exact same amount of candy/toys etc. and the hunt took a little longer. THen we'd have a hugh feast and call it a day.

Joan

 

[pjrose]

One of the things that always bugged me about Easter egg hunts was that a few kids (mostly the older ones) found most of the eggs. Since I only had around 10-12 kids I always bought those plastic eggs you can fill at Michael's and then put the same type of candy in the same colored egg. I used plastic if they weren't individually wrapped. Then the rule was you could only pick up one of each color. Even the small kids tend to be good with colors so they could figure it out. That way everyone got the exact same amount of candy/toys etc. and the hunt took a little longer. THen we'd have a hugh feast and call it a day.

Joan

That plus the greedy grabbiness really annoy me. The same thing happens with pinatas.

I like your solution. Perhaps I'd have a few special-colored ones as well, or maybe one or two of each color would have a special token to exchange for a prize such as an easter-themed beanie baby.

I also suggest avoiding anything with peanuts, just in case of an allergy.

 

[swift]

You can request that each participating family donate one bag of plastic eggs and one bag of prewrapped candy per child. That is what our church does.

 

[chellej]

We have 5 acres and when the kids were little we always did easter egg hunts and their friends would come over. There favorite thing in the eggs was coins , altough we would put candy and little toys as well.

We would put mainly penneys but add in a few with dimes & quarters. THey would think they hit the jackpot and we got rid of all that change that piles up

 

[pjrose]

I would actually hide some of the REAL eggs outside, ones that I had secretly dyed so the kids wouldn't recognize them

Since none of my kids actually ate the hard boiled eggs anyway, having them outside un-refrigerated for maybe a half hour - at most - wasn't an issue.

I wouldn't do this for a group thing, but my little ones were more impressed by the Easter Bunny bringing real eggs than they would have been by the plastic ones. Of course there were plenty of plastic ones with candy, stickers, etc as well.

 

[jlr10]

One of the things that always bugged me about Easter egg hunts was that a few kids (mostly the older ones) found most of the eggs.
Joan

We didn't do neighborhood hunts, but did do hunts inside our family. We assigned eggs colors by age. The older kids knew which color they were looking for, so it allowed us to put the eggs for the younger kids almost in plain sight. That way everyone got a fair chance at finding eggs.