Planning a Simple and Purposeful Community Resurrection Easter Egg Hunt

The weekend before Easter weekend...

...I donned my best Easter Bunny eggs

in preparation for our church's

Community Easter Egg Hunt.

God blessed us with beautiful weather

and a nice little crowd of egg hunting experts.

But in order for an event like this to have

any kind of impact on the community,

there had to be some organization, thought, and prayer

put into it.

Here are some of things I have learned when planning

and event like this one.

***

1.  Have Pre-Event Activities Planned

Our egg hunt was scheduled to start around 10am.

To keep early arrivers entertained

while we waited until about 10:10am to start...

...we had table of simple activities

for the kiddos and their families to participate in.

Our church Preschool Coordinator

had set out three jars with different

Easter candies in them.

The kiddos could each guess

how many pieces were in a jar,

and then place their guesses

in the basket behind the jar.

Later,

the papers were tallied,

and the closet guessers won the jars.

There were also lots of coloring pages

on the table for the kiddos to work on while they waited.

We copied them from a book similar to

 THIS Resurrection Eggs resource book.

***

2.  Gather Up Some Good-Humored Volunteers

My husband...

...is pictured above as

the "Easter Bunny."

He assisted me in the event planning,

not only by leading the kiddos to the hunt site...

...but also by stuffing and hiding countless eggs.

This lovely Mama

lead the craft at our event.

And there were others-

many others.

Others who planned, stuffed, set up, cleaned up,

took pictures, prayed, handed out flyers-

you get the picture.

An event like this CANNOT be put on by one

individual!

***

3.  Ask for Lots and Lots of Candy Donations

Here is what our preschool playground looked like

before the hunt-

it was littered with about 500 eggs.

If our congregation had not stepped up

with candy and prize donations,

this hunt would not have been nearly as fun

for the kiddos!

Now,

our congregation is generous,

but forgetful.

I had to have the help of one of our tech guys

to put together a little candy donations promo video

which was shown two weeks before the hunt.

After it played,

the candy donations came pouring in!

(Ask and you will receive, right?)  ;0)

Our preschool coordinator also donated some

lovely little stuffed animals and books

for bigger prizes.

Again,

if lots of people chip in,

and event like this does NOT have to break

the Children's Ministry budget!

***

4.  Designate Different Egg Hunting Sites

for Different Age Groups

We had a little over 1,000 eggs to be found,

so half of them were hidden on the preschool playground

for Nursery-Preschool

and the other half were hidden for K-5th grade students

behind the Youth House.

This keeps injuries from happening,

and enables ALL kiddos to have a chance at finding eggs.

***

5. Schedule the Creative Chaos

Here is a picture of the kiddos opening their eggs

after the hunt.

But this noisy fun

was all one the "schedule"

for the day...

An event like this CANNOT be planned to the second,

but it can have a schedule.

Here is what ours ended up looking like:

9:45 am-10:05 am

People arrive and work oat the coloring table.

10:05 am-10:20 am

Directions for the hunt are given,

kiddos are led to the hunt site, and the hunt occurs.

10:25 am-10:35 am

Kiddos open their eggs, collect their loot,

and put the empty eggs into the storage box.

10:35 am-10:55 am

Snack and story time

10:55 am until the end  

Craft and Photo Booth time

***

6.  Use the Snack as Part of the Story

Kiddos need to be fed,

so I took this time as an opportunity

to reinforce the

Resurrection Eggs lesson.

The kiddos and their families all got to come up

and make their own mini-bag of

Resurrection Trail Mix.

Each of the ingredients for the mix

symbolized a part

of the Easter story.

You can get the "recipe,"

(along with the scriptures and Resurrection Egg items),

for this trail mix by clicking

HERE.

***

7.  Have the Kiddos Participate in the Story

The lesson I did with the kiddos

was the Resurrections Eggs.

To include the kiddos

in this lesson,

we hide 12 special eggs that had

numbers in them instead of candy.

I would call the kiddos up

who had a certain number...

...and have them open up the corresponding

Resurrection Egg.

The kiddo would tell everyone

what was in the egg

and then go a claim a prize off of the prize table

while I explained the item further.

***

8.  Have a Simple Craft for All Ages

This can be a challenge.

But our craft guru came up with a simple

activity that all ages could do

(even if the littles required some assistance).

They made simple

Stained Glass Crosses...

...out of clear contact paper and tissue paper.

***

9.  Bring on the Fun With a Photo Booth

We were very blessed to have a pretty fabulous

amateur photographer

come and take pictures at the event.

(All of the photos in this blog post are from her,

Jan Christy,

in case you are in need of a photographer

for your next event!) 

To set up the photo booth,

we strung a white shower curtain

on our entry coat rack

and added a string of Easter eggs.

I then purchased several fun items

from The Dollar Tree,

like bunny glasses, hats, and garland

for the kiddos to dress up in

during their pictures.

The pictures were bunny-tastic,

if you ask me!

To gain access to the pictures,

I created an event Facebook page.

I passed out the information in a flyer

at the photo booth table

so that visitors could pick

the pictures they like and print them at home

if they so desired.

Our photographer also linked up a

Walgreens photo page for families

to print pictures off of.

***

There ya have it!

My tips for a simple and purposeful

community Resurrection Easter Egg Hunt.

If you all have any tips

that help with the planning of an event like this,

feel free to mention them in the comments section below!