Make a glow in the dark Easter Egg Hunt this year — a great outdoor Easter Egg hunt idea for all ages!

I think we’ve officially done them all now — indoor egg hunts, outdoor hunts, community egg hunts and this year, a super awesome nighttime egg hunt!!

See all our tips, tricks and ideas for setting up this quick, easy and AMAZING Easter egg hunt!!

Glow in the Dark Easter Egg Hunt

As you probably guessed, we love egg hunts in our house 🙂

When our kids were young (and Easter feel early in the year), we would plan out indoor Easter egg hunt with clues to lead them around the house in search of their baskets.

Then there was the Easter that was finally late enough in the year (with warmer temps) and we attempted our first outdoor egg hunt complete with rogue animals who absconded with a few of our eggs! (See the printable Outdoor Egg Hunt riddles here if you’re planning a hunt outside this year!)

I’ve always wanted to try an after dark egg hunt as one of our Easter activities. We love spending time outside in the evenings and sometimes Easter can get so busy with all the activities of the day. Doing a hunt at night is a great way to end the celebration.

Actually, I tried to set up a nighttime egg hunt before but honestly, trying to scrunch and stuff glow sticks into plastic eggs is quite a challenge and takes a ton of patience — until now!

Glow in the Dark Easter Eggs

The beauty of this hunt is this amazing set of eggs —> Party Sticks Glow in the Dark Easter Eggs!

The Party Sticks Glow Eggs are going to be the *newest* addition to your favorite Easter traditions, I promise! The regular set includes 24 heavy duty glow in the dark plastic eggs AND 24 mini glow sticks. If you want more eggs, try the 48 Glow in the Dark Easter Eggs which is perfect if you have a bigger family or group.

The eggs come in yellow, pink, purple, orange, green and blue colors and the mini glow sticks ALSO come in six different colors so they make the eggs glow very bright!

Plus these are very sturdy eggs so you’ll easily be able to use them year after year (I dropped them on the concrete a few times and none of them cracked). The eggs are also waterproof so no need to worry about them getting wet.

How Do You Make a Glow in the Dark Egg Hunt?

The inside of the eggs have a small compartment where you can place the mini glow sticks so they aren’t shaking around in the egg. Plus, having the glow stick attached in the center also allows you to put a small item in each of the eggs too (like this adorable set of printable Easter Coupons for Kids, Tweens & Teens!!).

Setting up the egg hunt is so easy —

bend the mini glow stick & shake
tuck the glow stick inside the slot in the egg
and then snap the egg closed!

That’s it! Easy-peasy!

Add in any small items before you close the egg if you want kids to find a fun surprise – in addition to the mini Easter coupons that fit perfectly, we also tested out small, wrapped Easter candy items which fit inside too.

Now just go and hide the eggs 🙂

Easter Egg Scavenger Hunt at Night

As you can see in the photo above, the eggs are very bright at night! We have the lights in our house on in the background and the eggs are near the base of one of our trees.

There are a number of ways to do a glow in the dark egg hunt! You can make it really easy (great for toddlers and preschool ages) or quick a challenge (which tweens and teens will really enjoy).

For younger kids, just place the eggs out in the open. They will be AMAZED to see these glowing eggs all around the yard! 🙂 Since the mini glow sticks are good for at least 6 hours, you can hide the eggs at dusk and once it gets dark, send kids out for the hunt!

If you’re doing the hunt with older kids, tweens, teens and adults — try hiding the eggs behind trees, in flower beds, under the edge of a bush, near the corners of a shed or play structure. Basically half-hidden but a little out in the open so as people walk around the yard, they will spot the glowing eggs.

Creative Egg Hunt Ideas

You can do quite a few variations on the traditional ‘just hide the eggs’ idea:

Do a timed scavenger hunt! Set your timer for 5 minutes to pick up the pace of this egg hunt! 😉 This is especially fun with teens and adults!
Do a color-coded egg hunt! Have each person choose one of the six egg colors and then ONLY collect eggs of that color.
Do a Spoon Egg Hunt! Give each person 2 spoons – the rule of the hunt is that they can only pick up the eggs with the spoons (no hands). Eggs have to be carried to their basket and put down before heading out to collect another egg. Lots of running in this game 🙂

See more fun Easter Egg Hunt ideas here!

Tips for Setting up an Easter Egg Scavenger Hunt

Here are a few tips and tricks to help you have an awesome egg hunt!

Tip 1: Hide the eggs right before dusk

I put our eggs together and set them out right after we finished dinner (it was barely dusk as you can see from the photo above). It’s easier to set up the hunt when the person hiding the eggs can clearly see all the hiding spots. 🙂 Then I cleaned up the kitchen and headed out on a walk with our dog. I came home about 40 minutes later.

Once I came home it was dark but not too dark (as you can tell from this photo). You could already see the eggs glowing from inside the house. Once I walked outside and approached the eggs, they were even brighter.

So if you have early bedtimes at your house, this hunt will still work for you and you can still have the kids in bed by 8pm 😉

Tip 2: Store the mini glow sticks in the freezer after the hunt

Just in case you aren’t aware, storing glow sticks in the freezer will lengthen the life of their ‘glow powers’. I just pop ours into a plastic storage bag and then keep them in the freezer until we want to use them again.

My brother-in-law told me this trick eons ago. We still have glow sticks in the freezer from last summer that work when we took them out!

Tip 3: Be sure to pick up odd items so no one trips!

Ok, fun police here — no one wants to pull out the band-aids during an egg hunt. So be sure that there are no toys, garden hoses or other items lying around the yard.

If you have a dog like we do, be sure to clean up any doggie doo also. An egg hunt is a really good incentive to get kids to help clean up before coming in for dinner. (lol!)

I’ll bet your asking “Do the eggs glow inside too?”

Yep! They do! But you have to have quite a few of the lights off in a room to see them glow. And it can get a little hazardous unless you have a big open area where people won’t walk into furniture and stuff. 😉

They would be really cool to use in a child’s bedroom or playroom where kids already know the lay of the land (so to speak). It would be a safe area where they can see the glowing eggs without running into things.

Outdoor Easter Egg Hunt Ideas

Not only can these eggs be used for an after dark egg hunt BUT you can also use them for any old egg hunt! They are very sturdy (much thicker than normal plastic Easter eggs) and come in six really nice pastel colors too.

So you can actually do two types of egg hunts with this one set of eggs! Set them up on Easter morning for a normal Easter egg hunt — grab this set of printable Outdoor Egg Hunt riddles to hide in the eggs to set up a really cool hunt for kids!

And then, once the sun sets, have another fun Easter scavenger hunt after dark too.

My mom always did a second egg hunt for us — I have fond memories of those. The first hunt was done early in the day and the plastic eggs included candy. Then, after dinner, she would tuck coins inside the eggs and hide them again. Once all the grown ups starting talking over dessert, the kids were set free to find the ‘money eggs’. You can actually fit coins into these eggs too if you like the idea of hiding ‘money eggs’ for your kids 🙂

Hoping this helps you create some awesome memories with your kids this year — Happy Easter!

More Easter Activities

Free Printable Easter Charades Game

20 Easter Games & Activities (w/free printables!)