Find family fun this Easter

Let’s be honest: chocolate is one of the main reasons Easter is such a great holiday. There’s no other time of year that your home will be so, um, choc-full, and no other time when gorging on the stuff is positively encouraged. But munching choccy eggs or even those fancy gold-wrapped bunnies isn’t exactly memorable, is it?

If you want family time that you’ll look back on fondly, we suggest looking beyond the delicious eggs and turning to your faithful friend the smartphone. It’ll help you find tons of Easter-related fun that will make the holiday special. Here are some ideas for this year’s Easter holidays.

What else goes with Easter apart from eggs? Well, there’s the Easter bunny, Easter chicks, Easter bonnets – loads of things that you can make with some basic materials. And the internet is teeming with crafty ideas that will encourage your children’s creativity and enable you to spend some quality time together. Even very young children will be able to make a paper-plate bunny or egg decorations, and you can find guides on the web or search an online bookshop for ideas and resources. If they’re a bit older or just more ambitious, step things up by making an Easter basket or a batch of charming cards to send to family members and friends. Just a word of advice: swerve the glitter unless you’re prepared to find it in unwanted places until the summer holidays.

It’s the Easter holidays. You’ve got hours to spare and it’s the perfect opportunity to head for the kitchen, roll up your sleeves and get baking. You’ll find absolutely tons of recipes online for Easter cakes, biscuits and all sorts of seasonal bakes, many of them tailored specifically for young chefs. Have a fiddle with your phone or device to make it easier to follow the instructions – turning off the screen’s auto-lock, for example, so you can keep the recipe visible hands-free – and you’ll spend many a happy hour around the oven. Not only will you end up with some delicious treats, with any luck you’ll help your children to gain skills and enthusiasm that will last for years. Imagine if they won Bake Off one day with an Easter-themed showstopper!

This one is admittedly kind of chocolate-focused. While you can hide a few eggs around your house or garden to be discovered, you can let the pros do the hard work for you. Just grab your phone or device and search for a local Easter egg hunt to find one in a picturesque location with fiendish clues that will keep your family entertained for hours.

If you don’t have access to a physical egg hunt for any reason, don’t worry – there are virtual alternatives. From the chocolate brand that’s set up a charming worldwide hunt to local venues and groups that allow you to solve puzzles online, there’s plenty of fun to be had. Sometimes you’ll end up with real chocolate, but if you don’t, we’re sure you can supply your own as a prize… Just search for “virtual Easter egg hunt”.

Ahead of the Easter holidays, make sure you’ve got all the best apps and bookmarked sites for finding things to do in your local area. With Easter Sunday falling on 20 April, Easter is almost as late as it can possibly be this year and spring will be well under way – but when you live in the UK, you know that’s no guarantee of good weather, so get searching for a wide variety of indoor and outdoor activities, as well as key details such as opening hours, facilities, parking and more. That’s a great way to keep everyone busy and happy… and nicely tired by the end of the day.