Easter is a nice time of the year to enjoy family time by planning a meal together or, if the weather’s nice, pack a picnic!
Easter is a time of celebration and is often marked by giving and receiving gifts, including Easter Eggs and other chocolate treats. It can be an exciting time for children, as many Easter Eggs are marketed using familiar characters and include treats inside the eggs. We want children to enjoy these treats, but it’s important for us to consider how we encourage variety. Easter treats don’t always have to be chocolate or sweet based, take a look at some of our top tips and Easter recipe ideas below!
Here are some of our ideas for planning mealtimes at Easter:
- Try to stick to a mealtime routine of 3 main meals and 2 – 3 nutritious snacks each day. It might help to keep chocolate until after main meals as it can reduce the amount little ones eat.
- Think about portion sizes. As a guide for adults, a portion of chocolate is roughly the same size as your index finger. For toddlers, a portion is roughly 2 – 4 squares of chocolate or 6-8 small chocolate buttons. Less than you might think!
- If children receive a number of Easter Eggs, encourage them to put some away for another time.
- Keep Easter Eggs out of sight to avoid temptation. It might help to take out as much as you would like to eat. Grazing on chocolate throughout the day can make it difficult to keep track of how much we’re eating.
Easter Recipe Ideas
We tried out different Easter themed snack recipes with nursery children and they went down a treat! They loved getting involved, learning about foods and being creative!
- Cheesy Bunnies: Babybel cheese with carrot and celery fingers. Let the kids be creative with the decoration
- Eggy Delight: Hard boiled eggs, use carrots or blueberries to decorate
- Fruity Eggs: Egg shaped pitta with natural yoghurt and any variety or fruit. Let the kids choose their favourite toppings
- Easter Pudding: We mixed natural yoghurt and a range of different fruits, including banana and mixed berries, placed the in cupcake cases and placed in the freezer. A delicious nutritious alternatives to ice cream.
- Hot Cross Buns: These are a great cooking activity to do with little ones, as they can help to weigh the ingredients, knead the dough and glaze the buns. Click here the get your free activity card or watch our step-by-step recipe video on Youtube.
- Bunny Pancakes: Create this adorable bunny out of delicious pancakes! Click here for our recipe card!
- Easy Easter banana cupcakes with peanut butter and cream cheese topping: These super simple banana cupcakes are a fantastic baking activity to get little ones involved with! They’ll love helping to weigh, stir and pipe the ingredients. This recipe is lower in sugar than normal cupcakes and uses cream cheese and nut butter for the toppings. Click here for the free recipe card.
- Fruity Easter shapes: If you’re short on time, these fruity Easter shapes are for you! Simply use different Easter themed cookie cutters to stamp out shapes from your chosen fruit, e.g. pineapple, watermelon, mango, apple, pear, etc.
- Hummus served with pitta: This hummus recipe is the perfect snack! It’s a good source of protein, iron and fibre. It can be served with pitta or used as a dip for your favourite vegetables. Your little ones will love helping to recreate this recipe! Click here for your free activity card.
- Bunny Bread: Our Bunny Bread is the perfect Easter snack and it is so quick and easy to make. We loved ours served with a yoghurt dip! Click here for your free recipe card
Other Easter Activities
- Plan an Egg Hunt in your garden-swap some of the chocolate eggs for painted hard boiled eggs, rabbit stickers or toys.
- Go for walks or scoot/ cycle to the park– you can play i-spy along the way.
- Try out a Change for Life 10 minute shake up– such as Judy’s Hop-a-thon.
- Craft activities– such as drawing Easter eggs, painting hard-boiled eggs and making paper Easter hats.
