Easter movie and chocolate night
A cosy night in to give the kids a treat and bring families together before the Easter holiday. Turn your school hall or canteen into a mini cinema and screen a family-friendly film such as Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Wonka, Hop or one of the Paddington movies. Charge for entry and include a hot chocolate with marshmallows and a small chocolate egg with each ticket. Make extra money by selling drinks, popcorn and chocolatey snacks, and running a raffle or tombola, with chocolate treats donated by local businesses. Ask attendees to bring blankets or come in their pyjamas to make things extra snuggly.
ChocFest
Transform your school hall into a celebration of all things chocolate. Think bake stalls with homemade chocolatey treats for sale, a chocolate buffet where you can pay £3 per plate for a selection of cupcakes, mousse cups or fondue. Or perhaps a pop-up chocolate café selling customisable hot chocolates, a chocolate fountain with fruit skewers for dipping. Keep the theme going with a ‘golden ticket’ raffle with hampers, vouchers and a giant Easter egg as prizes. Try a craft table where kids can decorate their own chocolate bar wrappers or make bunny ears, a photo booth with Easter-themed props. Get people to show off their skills with a chocolate toss game where you throw beanbags to win foil-wrapped chocolate eggs. Hold the event at pick-up time or later in the evening and combine it with a mini disco and a glow-in-the-dark egg hunt for the older pupils.
Adopt a (toy) chick
Buy a large batch of cheap, fluffy toy chicks and set up a cute ‘hatchery’ for them in the school canteen or hall using empty egg boxes or cupcake tins – or create a comfy nest using straw. Number the chicks with small stickers, noting down one as the winning number. Children then pay £1 each to ‘adopt’ a chick, writing their name and the chosen chick’s number on an adoption sheet. Take an envelope with the number of the winning chick to assembly for the big reveal and present its adopter with a prize such as a chocolate or cuddly-toy version of their adoptee. Everyone else gets to take home the little toy chick they adopted.
Chick-a-grams
Got leftover toy chicks? Use them in a school-wide, chick-a-gram delivery service – only £1 per message! Children write notes to their fellow pupils on paper slips, which volunteers collect up and attach to toy chicks using cute ribbons or pegs. PTA members or Year 6 pupils dressed as Easter bunnies (or mother hens) then deliver the basketfuls of chick-a-grams to the recipients in each classroom. If you don’t want to invest in toy chicks, get the kids making chick-shaped cards or paper chicks on sticks instead. To make sure everyone gets a chick-a-gram, you could ask teachers for each class to get their kids to pick the name of a recipient from a hat.
Run, rabbit, run
Think Santa run, but with everyone dressed as rabbits. If you’re feeling particularly energetic, you could choose to make it a hop-a-thon instead. Charge an entry fee (£3-£5 per child/family) or get children to raise money through sponsorship. Don’t forget to bulk-buy bunny ears and sell them to participants to boost your profits. Start with the PE teacher warming up the little bunnies with a workout to Easter-themed songs, then set off for laps of the playground/school field/local park. Make sure there’s a tempting treat at the end of the run – and no, a carrot won’t cut it.
Name the giant bunny
More rabbit-themed fun. Hold a school-wide competition to name and win a large stuffed bunny toy, preferably one donated or bought by a local business. Charge a low entry fee, such as 50p or £1, to encourage multiple entries and display the adorable bun in a high-traffic area of the school, such as the reception desk, to attract attention. You can either use entry slips on which children write their chosen rabbit name – but be prepared for numerous Thumpers and Flopsys – or create a poster with a grid of cute names and let children ‘buy’ squares until all of them are gone. Present the winner with their oversized rabbit at a special assembly – or as the climax of your Rabbit Run.
Egg on your (teacher’s) face
No pupil can resist the chance to have fun at their teacher’s expense, and Easter provides a perfect opportunity. Children pay a pound to vote for which embarrassing dare to inflict on their class teacher, with the results revealed in that week’s assembly. Embarrassing acts might include dancing to The Chicken Song in front of the whole school, taking part in a timed carrot-eating contest, being splatted with egg-shaped sponges, dressing up as a giant Easter egg, doing playground duty in rabbit ears/slippers, having a giant flour-filled egg cracked over their head, letting the reception class paint their face or having to write and perform an Easter-themed rap in assembly.
Easter escape room
Easier to pull off than it sounds – and super exciting for kids. Borrow a classroom, the school library or part of the hall, and set up a series of simple challenges for children to complete in small groups. Start with a prompt, such as: ‘The Easter bunny has forgotten where he stashed this year’s Easter eggs! Can you solve the puzzles to help him find them?’ Activities could include number games to reveal the code for a padlock on a treasure chest, searching through buckets of slime/beads/ping-pong balls for a key, unscrambling a giant picture that’s been cut into pieces or using invisible ink pens to uncover hidden bunny footprints. Each completed activity ‘unlocks’ the next clue, or provides a letter which eventually spells out where the secret stash of chocolate eggs lies. Run the escape room on the last day of term and let kids take turns coming out of class to do it, hold it as an after-school activity or run it as a side show at your disco, and charge for entry.
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