10 Screen-Free Activities for the Easter Holidays

Two weeks off school. It sounds glorious - until day three, when the tablets come out and you find yourself Googling “things to do with kids Easter holidays” at 9am. We’ve all been there.

The good news? Keeping the holidays screen-free doesn’t have to mean elaborate craft projects or expensive days out. Most of the best Easter holiday activities need very little setup, cost almost nothing, and can keep children absorbed for far longer than any app.

Here are ten of our favourites - a mix of indoor and outdoor ideas that work for toddlers, preschoolers, and bigger children alike. Save this one for the rainy days (and the sunny ones, too).

1. Set Up a Mud Kitchen

If you have a garden — even a small one — a mud kitchen is the single best thing you can invest in for the holidays. An old table, a few pots and spoons, a bucket of water, and access to soil is all it takes. Children will spend hours “cooking” soups, cakes, and potions, and the mess washes off.

If you want to bring the kitchen magic indoors too, a wooden play kitchen gives children the same role play satisfaction without the mud. Pop on one of our wipe-clean aprons and they’re ready to cook up a storm.

2. Go on a Spring Nature Walk

April is a brilliant time for nature walks. Daffodils, blossom, tadpoles, lambs — there’s so much to spot. Give each child a small bag and challenge them to collect ten natural objects: a feather, a smooth stone, a yellow flower, a piece of bark. When you get home, arrange them on a tray for a nature display or use them in craft.

Back at home, your woodland animal figures can extend the walk into imaginative play. Children love recreating what they’ve seen — a rabbit in the hedgerow, a bird in a nest, a fox crossing the path.

3. Build Something Brilliant

It sounds simple because it is. A box of wooden blocks and an open floor is all you need. Challenge your child to build the tallest tower, a bridge that can hold a toy car, a castle for their animals, or a city for their dolls. You can theme it to Easter — build a bunny house, or a pen for spring lambs.

Building play is one of the richest forms of open-ended learning. Children practise spatial reasoning, problem-solving, and fine motor control without even knowing they’re doing it. Add some stacking and balancing toys and they’ll be absorbed for the whole morning.

4. Plant Something

Easter falls right at the start of growing season, and children love watching things come to life. Cress on damp cotton wool is the classic starter — it germinates in days and they can eat it on sandwiches by the end of the week. Sunflower seeds in yoghurt pots are another winner.

Our Garden Wheelbarrow Set and Blossom Flowerpot bring gardening play indoors when the weather turns, and the Little Garden Designer is a full open-ended garden world that children can plan, plant, and rearrange to their heart’s content. For more spring-themed play ideas, our My Garden Activity Book is packed with hands-on activities.

5. Have an Indoor Picnic

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the ones children remember most. Spread a blanket on the living room floor, make some sandwiches, pour juice into “fancy” cups, and declare it an indoor picnic. Let them help with the food prep — buttering bread, washing fruit, arranging plates.

If you’ve got a play food and kitchen set, children can host their own picnic for their toys first, which often leads to a solid hour of imaginative play before the real sandwiches even come out.

6. Get Crafty with Things You Already Have

You don’t need to buy a single thing. Egg cartons become flower pots, toilet roll tubes become binoculars, cereal boxes become dolls house furniture, and newspaper becomes pirate hats. Keep a box of recyclable odds and ends — cardboard, fabric scraps, buttons, string — and let children make whatever comes to mind.

We’ve updated our Easter crafts page with fresh spring activities, including egg carton spring flowers and Easter headdresses. Everything is free, printable, and designed to work with materials you’ve got at home. Our full printable downloads page has over 100 craft activities to keep you going all holiday.

7. Set Up a Small World Scene

This is one of the most underrated play ideas out there. Take a tray or a baking dish, add some rice or pasta for “ground,” a few sticks for trees, maybe some water in a ramekin for a pond — and then add your child’s animal figures, a dolls house family, or some farm characters. Stand back.

Children will create entire stories in these little worlds. It’s the kind of quiet, deep imaginative play that doesn’t need adult direction — just the space, the figures, and the time. A spring-themed scene with bunnies, chicks, and flowers is perfect for Easter.

8. Play a Real Game Together

Not a screen game. A real one, where you sit on the floor together and take turns. Our Tic Tac Toe set comes in a bunny drawstring bag and is perfect for Easter morning, and the Woodland Indoor Croquet Set works brilliantly in the hallway or garden. Even a simple game of hide and seek or “I spy” can fill a half hour more meaningfully than any screen.

Our puzzles and games collection has options for every age — from simple shape sorters for toddlers to more complex wooden puzzles for preschoolers and beyond.

9. Make a Den

Blankets, cushions, chairs, pegs. That’s the recipe. Every child loves a den, and the building of it is at least as much fun as sitting inside it. Once it’s up, fill it with books, torches, snacks, and soft toys for a cosy reading corner — or declare it a castle, a cave, a spaceship, or a vet’s surgery.

Den play is brilliant for all ages. Toddlers love crawling in and out. Preschoolers turn it into role play central. Older children will spend a whole afternoon customising and defending their territory. All screen-free, all imagination-powered.

10. Do Absolutely Nothing

This might be the most important one on the list. The holidays exist for a reason. Children spend term-time being directed, scheduled, and stimulated from morning to night. Two weeks of less is not laziness — it’s exactly what they need.

Leave a basket of open-ended toys where they can reach them. A few wooden animals, some blocks, a dolls house. Then step back. The initial “I’m bored” will pass, and what comes after is almost always the most creative, most absorbed, most rewarding play of the day. Boredom is not the enemy. It’s the spark.

Making the Most of the Break

The Easter holidays don’t need a plan for every hour. Children need a mix of fresh air, creative mess, quiet time, and the freedom to lead their own play. The activities on this list aren’t designed to fill every minute — they’re starting points. Once a child is absorbed in building, crafting, gardening, or storytelling, they’ll take it wherever they want to go.

And on the days when it rains all morning and everyone’s a bit fed up? That’s what the indoor picnic is for.

Looking for spring inspiration?

Browse our Easter Edit for bunny-themed gifts, spring toys, and outdoor play ideas.

Shop the Easter Edit    •    Easter Crafts & Printables    •    Gardening Toys