Growing up my grandma always put on the most elaborate Easter scavenger hunt. She created it for my mom and uncle throughout their childhood, and it just kept growing as our family expanded. I picked up the tradition and host one for my boys and nieces, but I will say it’s really fun to include adults and watch them run around as they can get pretty competitive too!
I’ve included a free printable with starter clues that should work for any household to help you plan your own Easter scavenger hunt!
Planning Your Scavenger Hunt
Plan out the gifts
First you’ll want to plan on who all will be participating in the hunt. I make a list of how many clues each kiddo and adult will get, then how many gifts I need for each person. You can go big and have 8 gifts (so 8 clues) or just do 1 or 2 the first year to start making the game a tradition. Also- these are not big gifts, that’s not the point. The point is the fun of the game and I use gifts that would be typical Easter-basket filler. Usually there’s some candy, maybe lip gloss, nail polish, a toothbrush, etc. Mostly dollar section type of items because if not it will add up very quickly. And, it’s really truly more for the fun of the activity. One thing I learned from my grandma is to make things fun- but don’t lose your focus. And the focus and purpose of Easter is celebrating the resurrection of Christ. So keep the prizes simple!
Write your clues
I keep a folder with all my clues that I update them year over year. I usually dig through my grandma’s original stash and then adapt them to fit the rooms and furniture in my home. At the end of this post I’ve shared a download you can use with starter clues if you’re interested in making your own hunt! I kept these super generic so that they should fit any place you live.
When making up clues, make them rhyme and keep in mind that it may be a kiddo doing the searching. So you want to keep the clues simple- nothing too over the top complicated. Most of our clues point to things like the mailbox, the microwave, the oven, bookshelves, toy boxes, etc.
When you’re figuring out how many you’ll need keep in mind that everyone’s last clue is the same. The last gift will have a clue on it, but it’s the message telling them that they’ve finished. If you have 3 gifts, you really only need two unique clues, because the last one will be declaring the hunt complete.
Map out each person’s scavenger hunt
I assign each person a piece of paper with their name and the number of clues they’re getting. Using this, you can cut out and tape clues to it. Then if you decide a different clue would work better, or you realize you sent one person to the basement for every clue you can move them around. This is also a chance to start building the order of clues for people. Like, for my brother, his first clue may go to the garage, the second the basement, the third back outside.. just to keep him moving. 🙂 Whereas the littlest kiddos may have all their prizes in one room.
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Once you have all your clues typed, printed, cut out and taped onto their paper you start building the order of clues for people. Like, for example. If I’m looking over the clues for my brother I might want his first clue to go to the garage, the second to the basement, the third back outside.. just to keep him moving. 🙂 And if I’ve picked out all his clues and see that 5/6 are sending him to the kitchen I’ll know I need to change it up.
Rules to the Easter Scavenger Hunt
This is the part my family tends to jump over, but there are rules to the game!
- Everyone starts by getting their first clue out of the basket from their plastic egg.
- Then everyone goes around and reads their could aloud.
- After everyone has read their first clue, the game begins. This is my favorite part, watching people run around like crazy.
- Usually, I implement the rule that you have to bring each present back to your basket/the living room and read your next clue aloud too. Just to slow everyone down a bit that’s really helpful!
Like I mentioned earlier, everyone’s Hunt ends the same way. We have a last ‘clue’, that reminds our family that they’re loved by both our family and Jesus. Maybe my favorite part about the Hunt is that my grandma was always so intentional about making things fun, but not losing focus on why we have Easter.
If you make your own hunt please please tag me- and if you have any questions on how to make the hunt a success just drop it in the comments! It would give me so much joy to see and it really is such a special treat for the whole family!
Template/Example Clues Download:
Use this downloadable PDF as a way to start your own easter hunt! Just cross out or cut off the Answer line!
