Have an egg-cellent Easter at home with In Derby

Fri 3 Apr 2020

We may all be stuck at home, but In Derby have some egg-cellent activities for families to while away the time. We will be posting on social media each day from Sat 4 Apr to Sun 19 Apr with the activity of the day, so if you want to play along, follow In Derby on social media. If you want to get a head start and plan your holidays in advance, here is a full list of things to do this Easter:

1. To kick off the Easter Holidays, let’s get creative and colour in, make a collage, or paint an Easter egg to stick in your window, hang in a tree near your house or to use for your own Easter egg hunt in the garden! Or if you want to go big, why not grab some chalk and draw us a big Easter egg on your outside wall or driveway. Whatever you decide to do, take a picture and show us your creativity on Facebook or Twitter!

Collage eggChalk drawing

2. April is the perfect time to start growing a sunflower. You can order sunflower seeds online ready for you to become a master gardener. Watch a tiny seed become the tallest flower in your garden! Keep us updated as your plant begins to grow by sharing your photos.

3. We all have old or mismatched socks lying around, so why not make them into puppets of the Easter bunny or a little chicken and put on an Easter puppet show to share with us! If you don't have any socks, you could use your teddies and soft toys to perform your show. Record your shows and share them on Facebook or Twitter for us to see. We can’t wait to watch your creations.

4. Did you know you can keep reading with Derby Libraries this holiday with our free online eLibrary service? Borrow something from our range of eBooks, eMagazines and eAudiobooks to escape into fantasy worlds, learn about topics that interest you and keep yourself entertained this Easter. Some of our favourite eBooks this Easter include: 
·    Richard Scarry's Chipmunk's ABC by Roberta Miller
·    10 Hungry Rabbits by Anita Lobel
·    The Hunt for the Golden Carrot by Simon Sebag Montefiore
·    Farley and the Lost Bone by Lynn Johnston
·    A Bear's Year by Kathy Duval 
And some of our favourite eAudiobooks include:
·    Beatrix Potter, The Complete Tales
·    My Weird School Special by Dan Gutman
·    Winnie and Wilbur, Volume 4 by Laura Owen
·    Watership Down by Richard Adams
·    The Curse of the School Rabbit by Judith Kerr
What’s your favourite book? Share a photo or draw a picture of it for us and put it on Facebook or Twitter for us to see!

Book Banner

5. It’s springtime and the daffodils are in full bloom! Get out your colouring pencils and draw us your best daffodils! Share them on Facebook tagging @DerbyParks and we’ll pick our favourite picture! The winner will receive a voucher book for Mundy Play Centre at Markeaton Park to use when the Kiosk is open again.

Daffodils

6. Derby Arena have something fun for you to try today! We all need exercise and want to keep the kids entertained, so we have something that combines the two. Try our Parent and Child workout to do at home, and you could even encourage your kids to try and 'beat' you with the workout and get some friendly competition going! Use your own routine or follow the one from Derby Arena here.

7. Celebrate the day off this Good Friday by doing some Easter Baking. There is so much yummy food you can make ready to celebrate Easter this weekend. Here are a couple of great recipes you can try, from Easter Biscuits to Easter Nests! Show off your creations on Facebook or Twitter, and maybe even share your recipe if you haven’t used one of ours.

Easter BiscuitsEaster Nests

8. It’s Saturday so it’s time to build a fort! Embrace #duvetday and take this chance to relax and recharge over the weekend. Build a fort to get comfy in, and show us your wonderful creations on Facebook or Twitter!

9. Happy Easter! Once you’ve finished admiring all your Easter Eggs, celebrate the day with an Easter Egg Hunt in your garden. Pre-order some chocolate eggs or other goodies online and hide them around your garden ready for the hunt. Or instead of chocolate, you can use our animal cut outs that you can download here. Don’t worry that you can’t do the Easter Egg Trail Hunt at Markeaton Park this year, now you can do one at home! Can you find all the treasures waiting for you? Share your photos with us and tag @DerbyParks.

Easter Egg Hunt

10. Have a lazy Bank Holiday Monday and watch some Easter films like Peter Rabbit, Hop, or Chicken Little. Act out your favourite scene for us and share your acting masterpieces with us on Facebook or Twitter.

11. After your lazy day, it’s time to get active again with a workout with Joe Wicks. Joe is sharing P.E. classes you can do at home on his YouTube channel, The Body Coach, at 9am every weekday. Its great fun for everyone to get involved with and a great way to start the day! Why not record yourself doing some exercise and share your videos with us on Facebook or Twitter.

12. If you’re still feeling active after yesterday’s P.E. lesson, let’s get a little competitive with a Hula hoop or skipping competition! We want to know who can hula hoop or skip for the longest. Film yourselves having a go or post your winners photos on Facebook or Twitter for us to see.

Hula HoopSkipping

13. Get back to nature this Easter with a Five Senses Scavenger Hunt to do in your house, garden or on your daily walk. Look out for something rough, something smooth, something spikey, something round, something green, something blue, something that makes noise, something that smells sweet, something that smells fruity, something long, something short and something that moves, or make your own list of things to spot using one of your five senses. Take some photos of the things you find and share your results with us on Facebook or Twitter.

14. Collect up some of your toys and make the most of the spring sunshine! Place your toy next to a sheet of paper and draw around the shadow it creates for some unique drawings to colour in. With this you can draw anything from a horse to a dinosaur! If you don’t have any toys you want to draw around, why not get creative and see if you can turn the shadow of a hair brush into a hedgehog or the shadow of a flower into a palm tree. Show us what you can draw by sharing your pictures on Facebook and Twitter!

Shadow drawing

15. Let’s have a sing-a-long today! We want to know what your favourite song is, and we want you to sing it. Open YouTube or Spotify, or put on a CD, select your song, and perform some Karaoke to share with us on Facebook or Twitter. Feel free to dress up or dance along and get as creative as you want!

16. Get a bit sporty and hold an egg and spoon race in the garden! All you need is an egg and a spoon and someone who will race against you. If you want to do this indoors, hard boil your egg to avoid making a mess if it drops off of your spoon! Let us know who won your race by sharing your victory photos on Facebook or Twitter.

Egg and spoon race

Other activities to try:

We also have some downloadable activities for everyone to enjoy. If you’re still looking for things to do after completing our list, why not give our Easter Word search a try, or Spot the Difference between our two pictures of The Six having fun at Easter. There’s also plenty of colouring in to do, just print out some of the images of The Six or the Easter Eggs. All are available to download below as pdfs. 

If you want some more active things to do at home, check out This Girl Can’s Disney Workouts or Sport England’s new #StayInWorkOut Join the Movement campaign. The BBC has also produced an article about cricketing at home. Or you can just get up and have a dance to your favourite tunes and send us your videos!

We are also loving the new Google 3D animals that are sure to make any walk more fun. Its really easy to do, just Google search for your favourite animal on your phone and select to view in 3D. You can have a tiger in your garden, a penguin in your bedroom, or an octopus in your bathtub! Show us what the animals are getting up to in your house by sharing your photos with us.

Tiger from Google AnimalsPanda from Google Animals

We hope you all have fun this Easter holiday, and stay safe and well.