Family games for the Easter long weekend

Not sure what to do with the family this Easter weekend? Here's some inspiration to keep your little ones entertained:

Board Games

If you’re a family with board games hiding in a cupboard or the attic, now is the perfect time to dust them off and put them to use.

Play in teams to ensure that smaller children can be included, or set up a round robin tournament with scoring sheets. Longer games, like Catan or Monopoly, can be played over a few days in case attention spans start dwindling. 

It can be harder to get tweens and teens involved, but getting the chance to win against siblings or parents can be an irresistible draw! ​​​​​

Physical games

Easter is the perfect time to break out the chalk for hopscotch, or get competitive with Red light, Green light or an afternoon of What’s the time Mr Wolf.

With a paved area and a wall free, handball tournaments are an easy way to pass the time, as is a skipping rope (or two if you’re feeling brave).

If there’s a large enough outdoor space, It, Catch or any other runaround game is both fun and exciting. Other games like charades and pictionary can get everyone involved - just think back to the games you used to play as a young person and get started.

Scavenger hunt

Eggs hidden all around the house (or garden) makes for a terrific scavenger hunt. Make up clue sheets to add some investigation and intrigue to the day!

Barnardo's Egg-citing Activity

Here are some Egg-citing activities and worksheets to help your children have a cracking time this Easter:

• Eggciting Challenge ages 4-7 – A lesson plan template for children aged between 4 and 7-years-old.
• Eggciting Challenge 7-11 – A lesson plan template for children aged between 7 and 11-years-old
• Look After Your Egg – Fill in this worksheet at the start of the week with the cracking plans that you’ve got coming up.
• How to Boil An Egg – A step-by-step guide for boiling an egg. Don’t forget that you should always ask an adult to help.
• Egg Emotion – Cut out and decorate the egg shape. Pens, pencils, paint, glitter – the choice is yours!
• Can you design something to carry your egg? – If you put an egg straight into your book bag, it might crack and create a big mess. This fun activity sheet allows you to design something that will help you keep your egg safe for seven days.
• Egg Passport – Help complete your Egg Passport with all of the d-egg-stinations you will be visiting.
• My Egghead – This worksheet will help you record the tasks that you will be doing for your egg each day.
• Egg-stra Special people – This worksheet teaches children about the special people in our local community who look after us and keep us safe.

Camping

If you don't fancy going away for the weekend, you could consider a home campout. This could be as official as tents in the backyard, or as easy as sleeping bags or mattresses and duvets in the lounge room.

Cook camping food like beans or sausages, tell ghost stories, play charades - just pretend you’re not in the comfort of your own house (with a much nicer bathroom than a camping ground as a bonus!)

Talking games

These are the ones typically reserved for long car rides like I Spy, Celebrity Head or 20 Questions. Less common ones include:

• Yes/No: Each person takes turns to answer questions truthfully without using the words yes or no 
• Never-ending story: Each person in the group says one word in the sentence to form funny stories.
• Guess the song: Someone hums the first line of a song and everyone has to guess
• Guess the song II: Each person takes turns to read aloud from a book but singing the melody of a song. Eg. Singing the Happy Birthday song, but using the words from a cookbook.

Dress-ups

Let the kids go through your wardrobes and dress-up in anything that isn’t special or off-limits. See what characters they invent to come up with their costumes, or even stage a play. This kind of roleplay can also be good for kids to express themselves in ways that they might not have otherwise done.

Other resources 

There are also plenty of educational sites that are sharing their ideas for activities, perfect for spending time together as a family.​​​​​​

Tiny Happy People: The BBC has a resource for age groups 0-3 months up to 4-5 years, with fun activities relevant to their learning age. Everything is based on what you already have in the house, making it a great resource for lockdown.

Family Zone: The Literacy Trust also has age range activities, 0-4, 5-8 and 9-12, including activity and colouring sheets, play resources and scavenger hunts​​​​​​.

Wildlife Watch: Wildlife Watch have 60+ activities including how to make a bird box, how to identify leaves and flowers and how to make salt dough creatures, and all earn points towards awards you can print out for your little ones. 

Tree ID for Kids: The Woodland Trust has compiled resources for children to explore the trees in your garden or that you might see while out on your daily exercise. The printable tree ID guides are a fantastic way to help children learn about trees.​​​​​​