Homemade Easter Games

                                                          Photo Courtesy of  Simon Howden


Easter is a great holiday for children around the world. It brings families together to celebrate in their religion or for the simple fact that spring is finally here. Children get to indulge in chocolate, candy and baked goodies. There is usually a huge Easter feast with ham as the centerpiece. Easter egg hunts can be thrilling or a disappointment. It all depends on how well planned the Easter egg hunt was for all the different ages. But there is always the hunt at home so in the end the children get more than enough sweets. Easter can also be full of spring games that delight everyone. What fun it will be for a child to be part of the process of helping create the equipment or pieces for the game and then play the game afterwards.

Today I will show you how to make fun homemade games that you can use for family reunions, birthday parties that fall around Easter or for teachers to use in classrooms and preschools.

Easter Bocche Ball

1. Mix equal amounts of glue and water. Each child can make a tissue egg ball in the bowl and squeeze out the glue. Let dry.
2. Let each child pick out one or more colors of tissue paper. As long as their egg balls differ from one another in color. Glue small pieces of tissue all over the egg ball. 
3. Make a target egg ball in a completely different color.
4. When all the egg balls are dry, place a piece of rope on the floor as a starting point. Throw the target ball first. Each child then gets a turn to throw their egg ball. The child whose egg ball is closest to the target wins.

Easter Ball Tag

1. Each child is to cut out 2 oval shapes out of felt.
2.  He can decorate both eggs by gluing on shapes and lines from different colored felts. Let dry.
3. The child will then stick onto the center of each egg, three equal precut equal lengths of loop-sided Velcro. 
4. Place a piece of paper inside a T-shirt. Glue the egg on the front and on the back. When it is dry remove the piece of paper.
5. Cut two strips of the hook-sided Velcro and glue them on a soft ball so that it goes around the ball and crosses each other. Let dry.
6. The children slip on the t-shirts and try to hit the target on each other. When you are hit, you return the ball to the person and sit down. Last one standing wins.

Musical Easter Eggs

1. Each Child can draw shapes and lines and color a large Easter egg shape out of poster-board.
2. Place the egg shapes on the floor with room to move between them.
3. Play music and remove one egg each time.
4.  When the music starts everyone starts dancing or hopping around the eggs. When the music stops they have to hop onto an egg. 
5. The child who does not have a egg to hop onto has to sit out but gets a turn at controlling the music and removing an egg.
6. Keep going until there is only one is left.     

  Bocche ball, tag and musical chairs are fun but when you give them a Easter twist and get the children to help create the games, it becomes a wonderful way to celebrate Easter.