Easter Egg Hunt Planning

In 2016 Easter Egg Hunt, we did a trail hunt for the older kids and two age groups with 2 bales of hay. We used 150 candy filled eggs per age group. Based on the success of the trail egg hunt, this might work best for next year:
1) Do two egg hunts, one with hay for little kids, one on the trail
2) Let parents decide which egg hunt is right for their kids
3) One bale of hay is enough, and let’s make the hay distribution thinner… it was a bit much for the little kids to find the eggs.

We gave out 2 golden eggs per age group with the stipulation of one golden egg per child. Prizes instead of quarters were given to the finders of the golden egg.

Two games were used:
1) Spin the bunny in a basket like a jumping rope for 10 spins and then land the basket without spilling the bunny
2) Tug-o-war with the bunny basket and around 5-6 kids on each side. Two lines was drawn about 10 feet apart from a center line that when the bunny crossed the other lines, that decided the winning team.

Hot chocolate and water were provided, along with fruit, cookies and some mini-bakery goods.

Hay: we have used 2 bales of hay in 2012/2013 and it seem adequate. Cost is around $22 from the Grange in Issaquah. Finding recipients for the hay afterwards would be preferrable to tossing it in yardwaste bins. The yellow hummer house took several trash bags of hay to their school for guinea pigs.

We constructed the 3 age group areas, cordoned off by streamers for these age groups:
1) 3 and under
2) 4-6
3) 7 and up

In 2013, we made the egg hunt areas adjacent to each other which made spreading the hay much easier, and cleanup was also faster. This reduced the stakes needed to 6. We noticed that paper streamers sagged with the morning moist air, so a synthetic streamer would be preferable. We cordoned off 3 sides, leaving one side open, and used the chalk A-boards to help identify who should be in front of each area. Sue launched all 3 age groups with a whistle and the event was over within 10-15 minutes.

Here's a couple of takeaways from the 2013 event that we might do differently next year:
1) On the Easter Egg notification on the website, emphasize that it will begin "promptly at 10am", because we had a few stragglers that missed out;
2) Hold back some eggs for the stragglers;
3) Place eggs throughout the park to make it more engaging;
4) Do an email blast to notify people about the event;
5) Serve coffee and tea for the parents to make it more of a social event for everyone.

Some take aways from the 2015 event:
1) Make the 7&up egg hunt area the biggest, because this is becoming the biggest age group.
2) Having games before the egg hunt is a great way to handle the stragglers. The games that involve teamwork might be better than individual events. The Bunny Hop was a great event.
3) Hot chocolate and snacks were a big hit