Spring is finally here and as I woke up this morning to bright sunshine, I breathed a sigh of relief and started getting excited about doing more activities outside and the fact summer is just round the corner. As Easter is nearly upon us, I wanted to share a great project I came up with that you could do with the children during Easter.

Hold an Easter tea-party

It may sound a little girly, but I can assure you it is a great way to get your children (whether you have boys or girls or both) do something constructive and ‘outdoorsy’ this Easter. You could use some of the creative ideas below as small activities which lead up to the tea-party and whoever knew a child to turn down yummy food? The party at the end is a great incentive to get involved in the other activities before hand.

Get Creative

• Considering the phrase ‘April showers’ it may be a good idea to be prepared. Perhaps a play tent or a wooden playhouse would make a useful place to hold a tea party in shelter if your children are small. For the slightly larger families, a gazebo or tent will do the trick. Another idea, is to use tarpaulin or plastic sheeting (old waterproof sheets or mattress covers can be useful) and string it up or drape it over the washing line, securing the corners to fences, wooden poles or even the corner of your shed. You could also use tent pegs to fix the corners to the ground. Even if the weather is nice, it is always fun to make a den or playhouse with your children.
• Decorate the den, play tent or playhouse with bunting. Easter-egg shaped pieces of card, or traditional triangles are great to decorate and can be strung up just like village-fete style bunting. This is a great way to get everyone involved if you have a larger brood as they can all be decorated individually then put together afterwards, so everyone feels part of the activity. They could make collages from tissue paper or magazines or even get the paints out for messy finger painting.

Finger painting is a great one for younger children – you could even transform their thumb prints into Easter chicks with a marker pen after the paint has dried.

• Make Easter bonnets. There is a page dedicated to Easter bonnet making here at Netmums. You could go traditional, or get a bit more creative like they did here at Sun Hats & Wellie Boots where they made Daffodil Head Boppers! A fun and definitely spring-themed idea.
• Make crazy egg creatures to join your tea party! You will be surprised how much fun a child can have painting crazy faces and attaching googly eyes and pipe cleaners to hard boiled eggs. Let them get a bit messy and have fun with it! If you don’t want the eggs to smell (hard boiled will after a while in the warm palm of a child) you could have a go at egg blowing. This article ‘How to Blow Out Eggs’ shows you how.
• Make Easter –themed treats. Now this is the tasty bit of the exercise! Making sweets, cakes, biscuits and the classic rice-crispie cakes with mini eggs in (to look like bird’s nests) can all be a great activities to get the children involved in and they taste good too. Just make sure there are enough left for the tea-party – or make them the same day. You could have a go at making anything chicken/egg or rabbit shaped, so the possibilities are endless.
• Decorate paper plates and cups, and even a paper table cloth, to brighten up the party and add that something egg-stra (sorry I was trying to write without using Easter puns but could not help myself!!) If you don’t have a little table you can use outside, just use a picnic blanket or old sheet. The great thing about an old sheet is you could decorate that with fabric pens if you wanted to?

I hope this has given you some Easter inspiration, and gives you some great activities to keep the kids amused. Enjoy the holidays!

Written by Abbi Stewart – one of the ‘play experts’ at Big Game Hunter’s playhouse shop.