The 720 Easter Egg Hunt Part 3: Decorating the Space

Welcome to the third and final part of the 720 Easter Egg Hunt series. You can find Part 1: How It Works here and Part 2: Making It Meaningful here.

Today is all about how we were able to hide all 720 eggs in three very open rooms. It was only possible because of a wonderful crew that helped me strategically decorated.

My goal with the decorating was to create new opportunities for hiding eggs. I also wanted big props to create obstacles that children needed to move around. Even the table in the picture helped break up the room and slow children down.

Step 1: Giant Grass
I asked two people to build me giant grass props with boxes in front. Another team helped paint the cardboard. When they were dry we placed them around the room. After adding colouful plastic grass they made the made perfect hiding spots.

Step 2: Giant Eggs
The same two people drew and cut out giant cardboard eggs. The painters did a wonderful job decorating the eggs.

 

 

To make them stand we put them in these pails. After adding more plastic grass they were another great hiding spot.

Step 3: Use What We Have
I found pails, baskets, tubs around the church and filled them with plastic Easter grass (we have a lot of Easter grass). Then we looked for other options for hiding. There were 20 eggs on the Lego table and over 100 in our shoe rack. We even used wrapped shoe boxes to create spaces to hide eggs.

 

Step 4: Create A Preschool Space
The first year I learned two things, 1) younger children can be right in front of a blue egg and still not see it and 2) they get overwhelmed by the "big kids." To help them have an enjoyable experience we have a "Preschool Only" room.

We limit the hunters allowed in the room to age 5 and younger. We only have the bottom half open to deter older children from hunting in the younger kids space. To keep the room fun we "hid" eggs in the open in groups of twos and threes. There are a few more challenging hiding spots for the 4s and 5s, but the challenge is appropriate to the age. I make sure at least one volunteer is in this room to monitor what is going on and to stop older children from trying to hunt in the room.

Final Notes:
These are a few more details about how the hunt works at my church:

• The hunt is Easter Sunday morning between the two services.
• We decorate and hide the eggs Good Friday afternoon.
• We would love to have the hunt out doors but living in Canada means we never know if it is going to snow and I am not going to risk it.
• 720 is a lot of eggs, I would be overwhelmed by the hunt if it weren't for the great people who volunteer there time. Many people make the job easy, fun, and possible.
• We used our main kids room and two smaller classrooms to hide. We put signs on doors of rooms we did not want kids searching.
• We hide eggs in groups. Four or five eggs of the same colour/number in one hiding spot. The first children through have the easiest time but everyone seems to find it fun and challenging.
• The way we do our hunt scales well. If you are expecting 8 children make 10 sets (to be prepared) and that's 120 eggs. If you are expecting 20 children, make 25 sets that's 300 eggs.    

Thanks for visiting, if you would like to read the earlier posts about our Easter Egg Hunt you can find them here:

Part 1: How It Works

Part 2: Making It Meaningful