Easter Ideas

atotton · Mar 15, 2016

The local miniature horse 4H group is coming next weekend for a tour. I am looking for ideas on activities I can set up for them with the minis. I am thinking of doing an obstacle course and with each obstacle they complete collect an egg. The person with the most eggs in their basket wins. Any ideas would be great! Or cool obstacle ideas that can be a bit tricky for some of the older kids.

paintponylvr · Mar 16, 2016

paint the minis with Easter color hand prints
obstacles - mini stands while child does "limbo" under a jump, then is asked to come over the bar (only if yours do that)
obstacles - a couple of tires to walk thru or the child puts one leg in center and walks around outside while leading mini horse or stays in center while leading mini horse around
braid the minis with Easter color ribbons
use clips to attach ribbons to mane and tail

if you have "solid" hay bales, have child walk on top while mini walks beside off the hay (ours aren't solid enough to support a walker on top of hay)

amysue · Mar 16, 2016

Have an easter egg hunt or a scavenger hunt around the farm. I've had "haystack hunts" before, hubby piles up a huge pile of chaff with the loader and we hide eggs or prizes in the pile then the kids race to find them all. Sometimes each kid is assigned a color and is only allowed to pick up that color egg. Play pin the tail on the pony (paint a picture of a pony and make ribbon tails to pin on them). Have an egg and spoon race with plastic easter eggs on horseback, or in hand if they don't ride. Play a game of horseshoes with real horse shoes or set up a craft table and let them paint lucky horse shoes. Set up hula hoops and have them play ring toss with green carrots (ponies will enjoy eating the carrots). Or play corn hole with carrots or plastic easter eggs. Have the kids run a grain sack race or 3 legged race, tying the legs with hay twine. Have the kids run a duckling waddle race (they bend over and grasp their ankles and waddle to the finish line). Print out coloring pages and have them color their favorite pony a picture or get them to collaborate together to write a story about a day on the farm. You could hard boil eggs and have them color easter eggs. My favorite was the bunny tail game, divide them into two teams, each with an empty bowl and one full of cotton balls. The ref puts a dab of Vaseline on their noses and they have 30 seconds to get as many cotton balls into the empty bowl with their nose as they can. Have fun.

amysue · Mar 16, 2016

As for tricky obstacles...try side passing over flower boxes, backing mini thru L poles, leading mini thru tires, taking an egg out of a mailbox or bucket and depositing it in a bucket after going over poles or cavaletti. Make a teter totter out of a piece or plywood and a piece or round pvc pipe. Make a door way out of wood or pvc and shred up a vinyl shower curtain to make a walk thru obstacle. Set up pool noodles into loops and waves and walk ponies thru or make kids army crawl thru.

atotton · Mar 16, 2016

Thanks so much, these are some great ideas!

horselover161 · Mar 17, 2016

When I lived in Virginia, one of the horse rescues had an Easter Egg trail ride for a fundraiser. Though instead of picking up the eggs, you counted them. Whoever had the correct number in the end won. With minis, you could hide them around the farm & have the kids follow a track to count the eggs (maybe have the older kids trot).

I have also decorated eggs to look like horse heads before. Cut out paper ears & nose & have a blaze running down the center.

Love the idea for the bunny tail game, amysue! Will probably play that with my kids this Easter!