It feels like just as quickly as we got the kids back to school they’re home again, waiting to be entertained for the next two weeks of Easter holidays.
While ideas may have run dry in the months they were stuck at home, there are some new Easter-themed activities you can try.
We’ve rounded up the five ways you can pass some time for this second quarantined Easter break.
Bosch is launching a new seasonal bake-along series specifically for children, with their first Easter-themed event taking place next week.
The free virtual bake-along, hosted by Bosch culinary manager Eleanor Martin, will take place live on Instagram on Friday, April 2, with Eleanor showing participants how to make delicious chocolate Easter muffins.
Registration is now open and the first 100 people to register will receive a free bake-along kit from the appliance company. Sign up at www.bosch-home.ie for the recipe and ingredient list.
If you miss the event, you can always catch up online or try out another easy recipe with the kids. Check out Darina Allen’s foolproof chocolate cake recipe here or Michelle Darmody’s Easter baking tips here.
In partnership with Healthy Ireland and Libraries Ireland, GIY recently launched a new initiative called Grow it Forward, where they are giving away 50,000 free seed kits to the public.
As part of the Government’s Keep Well programme, the campaign is designed to help the nation eat well by inspiring and supporting people to grow some of their own food at home while connecting with friends and family.
Each food growing pack includes seeds for beetroot, carrots, salad leaves, peas, and tomatoes, as well as a growing guide, a postcard, and gift tags to help you share with others.
Those who sign up will also receive regular e-mails with growing support, video clips, and ideas for how to ‘grow it forward’ by passing on seeds, seedlings, or produce, in accordance with social distancing guidelines.
You can claim a Grow it Forward pack at www.giy.ieor by contacting your local library.
If you are looking to safely get out, see if somewhere within your 5km is offering a socially-distanced Easter egg hunt, like the one at Wells House and Gardens in Wexford taking place from April 2 to 5, or the early hunt currently taking place around Trinity College Dublin.
Or host your own hunt for your family with Lidl, which has Easter egg hunt packs available for download online or in stores.
There are endless Easter-themed arts and crafts ideas for kids online.
How about some paper Easter baskets, bunny origami bookmarks, twine carrot sticks or some simple printable Easter rings from easypeasyandfun.com.
Mary Fitzgerald also offers her top crafting tips here.
There’s always the good old ‘poke a hole in the egg and paint’ concept of our own childhoods too. If your children are a bit younger, cutting out and taping together the plastic casing of a chocolate egg for painting might be a bit tidier. Or go really simple and paint some egg-shaped radishes.
If crafts aren’t your child’s thing, you could also try out Mark Langtry’s at-home science experiments for kids instead.
There are also loads of colouring competitions out there at the moment, such as these ones from Shamrock Lodge Hotel or World Missions Ireland.
Easter is a special time for history in Ireland. EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum, is sending out special Easter Rising History at Home packs by email for those who sign up here.
They’re also offering virtual museum tours and exhibitions on their website.
The National Museum of Ireland is also doing online tours, as are NASA, the Natural History Museum of London, and more. Dublin Zoo also has webcams of their animals that you can check out.
Cork County Council Library and Arts Service launch their annual Spring into Storytime initiative on April 1. This year, the events will be held online for families, with library staff doing readings for children over on Facebook and Twitter for the whole month of April.
There’s a host of other activities planned too, like instructional craft videos for children and online book recommendations from staff.
There will also be a storytime workshop for parents and teachers presented by literacy expert Catherine Gilliland and online Rhyme and Sign sessions for parents and babies presented by Claire Glynn.
When storytime is over, rainy spring evenings are the perfect time to catch up on some of the new kids’ movies streaming online.
Check out our roundup of the best family-friendly movies of last year here.
Our picks for the best Easter movies available to stream now:
- with James Marsden on Netflix
- , adapted from the classic Richard Adams Novel, also on Netflix
- by Wes Anderson on Disney Plus
- , voiced by Ben Affleck, on Netflix
- on Disney Plus
- on Amazon Prime
RTÉ is also airing this Saturday, March 27 at 6:35pm on RTÉ One and will show on March 28 at 2pm over on RTÉ 2. Keep an eye out for more television updates for Easter week.
