95 Fun Facts About Easter Trivia for Kids

What is the Sunday before Easter called?

Palm Sunday recalls crowds waving palm branches as Jesus entered Jerusalem; where palms won't grow, churches hand out willow, olive, box or yew twigs instead.

The Easter Bunny story first came from which country?

Germany is where the egg-laying Easter Hare began; settlers carried the tale to America in the 1700s, and there the hare turned into a bunny.

Long ago, the Easter Hare had the same job as which other holiday visitor?

Santa Claus keeps a naughty-or-nice list, and the original Easter Hare did the same job: it judged whether children had been good, and only the well-behaved found coloured eggs in their nests.

Besides eggs, what else does the Easter Bunny bring to children?

Candy and toys came later: the original Easter Hare left only coloured eggs, and the sweets and gifts were added as the custom spread across America.

What is the week leading up to Easter called?

Holy Week follows the last days of Jesus's life, and older Greek and Roman service books call it the Great Week because of the great deeds they say were done in it.

What do children usually collect their eggs in during an Easter egg hunt?

A basket took over from the nests that children once built for the Easter Hare to lay its coloured eggs in.

Which famous person, some believe, organised the first Easter egg hunts?

Martin Luther is said to have suggested that men hide eggs in the garden for their wives and children to find, the garden standing for the one where Jesus was buried.

Some Christians say rolling Easter eggs recalls which part of the Easter story?

The stone moved from the tomb on Easter morning is what a rolling egg is said to recall, though at the White House, home of the best-known egg roll, it is simply a game.

Which British name for rolling eggs down grassy hills comes from an old word for Easter?

Pace-egging also covers the 'pace-eggers', costumed players who paraded the streets singing and acting out folk plays in return for eggs and money.

According to an old Lancashire legend, what would witches do with broken eggshells?

Legend said witches would steal the broken shells and use them as boats, so the shells had to be crushed up carefully after the egg roll.

How were eggs traditionally coloured for rolling in England?

Boiled with onion skins wrapped around them, the eggs came out a mottled gold; today most are simply painted.

What keepsake has each child taken home from the White House Easter Egg Roll since 1981?

A wooden egg has gone home with each child since 1981, when the first ones were hidden for a hunt and carried the autographs of actors, athletes and politicians.

What do children push their eggs with at the White House Egg Roll?

A long-handled spoon became the racing tool in 1974, when the first egg-rolling races used serving spoons borrowed from the White House kitchen.

Which president brought the Egg Roll to the White House lawn in 1878?

Rutherford B. Hayes agreed after young egg rollers stopped him on his walk to ask if they could use his lawn, as Congress had just shut them out of the Capitol grounds.

Why did Congress ban egg rolling at the Capitol in 1876?

It wrecked the lawn: after a wild egg roll in 1876, Congress passed a law to protect its turf and barred children from using the Capitol grounds as a playground.

Which first lady is said in legend to have started Washington's Easter egg roll?

Dolley Madison gets the credit only in legend; what is on record is that in 1814 she had George Washington's portrait rescued from the White House before British troops burned it.

What is the Thursday before Easter, remembering the Last Supper, called?

Maundy Thursday recalls Jesus washing his followers' feet at the Last Supper, an act English kings and queens once copied by washing the feet of the poor.

What is another name for a decorated Easter egg?

Paschal egg uses Pascha, the Greek and Latin name for Easter, which is tied to the Hebrew Pesach, Passover; nearly all of English's neighbour languages name the holiday from that root.

What is the oldest way of making an Easter egg?

Dyeing and painting a hen's egg is the oldest kind of Easter egg; one explanation is that eggs were forbidden during Lent, so people decorated them to celebrate the end of the fast.

What colour did early Christians traditionally dye Easter eggs?

Early Christians in Mesopotamia stained eggs red in memory of the blood of Christ, a custom kept by Orthodox Christians.

Eggs are an old symbol of what?

New life is the egg's ancient meaning: the shell looks as lifeless as a stone, yet a living creature is sealed inside.

The chocolate in an Easter egg is made from the seeds of which tree?

Cacao pods each hold 20 to 60 seeds, and the tree relies on tiny flies called midges to pollinate its flowers: no midges, no chocolate.

How old are the oldest decorated eggs found in Africa?

60,000 years is the age of engraved eggshell pieces from Diepkloof Rock Shelter in South Africa, where Stone Age people used the shells as containers and scratched line patterns into them.

In which country do boys tap girls with braided willow switches on Easter Monday?

Czech Republic tradition has boys braid a willow whip called a pomlázka and tap girls with it, a custom said to pass on health and youth for the year; the girls reward them with decorated eggs.

Which country's beautifully patterned wax-decorated eggs are called pysanky?

Ukraine's pysanky are made by drawing patterns on the shell in wax, dipping the egg in dye and repeating; in 2024 the craft joined UNESCO's list of living heritage.

In Poland, decorated eggs are shared at the family table before which meal?

Polish families share blessed decorated eggs before Easter Sunday breakfast, a sign of friendship like sharing the Christmas wafer.

In the game of egg tapping, what is each contestant trying to do?

Crack the other player's egg while keeping your own whole: contestants knock boiled eggs together end to end, and whoever holds the last unbroken egg wins.

In Sweden, what colourful decoration is tied to birch twigs at Easter?

Feathers in bright colours are tied to birch twigs in a vase; the twigs recall an old custom of switching one another with birch on Good Friday as a reminder of Jesus's suffering.

In the traditional Easter egg dance, with eggs lying on the floor, what is the dancers' goal?

Not to break any is the whole aim; a 1552 painting in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum shows a harder version, in which the dancer must also trap an egg under a wooden bowl inside a chalk circle.

Mardi Gras, the French name for the last day before Lent, means what in English?

Fat Tuesday was the last chance to use up the eggs, fat and other rich foods that were off the table once Lent began.

Which author created Peter Rabbit?

Beatrix Potter first told the story in an illustrated letter to a sick child, then paid to print it herself in 1901 before a publisher took it on the next year.

What is a baby bunny called?

A kit, short for kitten, is left alone in the nest for most of the day: its mother comes back to nurse it only about once every 24 hours, and for just a few minutes.

What is a father bunny called?

A buck is a male rabbit, a word shared with male deer and goats; a happy rabbit of either sex may leap and twist in mid-air, a jump owners call a binky.

What is a mother bunny called?

A doe is a female rabbit; shortly before her babies arrive she plucks fur from her own body to line the nest and keep them warm.

Why are a bunny's back legs longer than its front legs?

For quick hopping: the long, strong hind legs launch a rabbit away from danger, and they can land a powerful kick if it is caught.

What do bunnies often do while they sleep?

Keep their eyes open is what rabbits often do while asleep; they are mostly active at night, so much of that dozing happens in daylight.

Rabbits became a symbol of spring because they are famous for what?

Having many babies made the rabbit an ancient sign of spring's fresh start: a mother can raise several large litters in a single year.

What is a group of bunnies' underground home called?

A warren is the maze of joined burrows that European rabbits dig, but North America's cottontails dig none: they rest in shallow surface nests called forms.

Which is the only continent with no bunnies?

Antarctica is the only continent without rabbits; people carried European rabbits to all the others, and a few released in Australia in 1859 had overrun most of that continent within 50 years.

How are baby bunnies born?

Hairless and blind, baby rabbits are born helpless in a burrow; baby hares, by contrast, arrive furry, with open eyes and ready to move.

What is a hare less than a year old called?

A leveret is a hare under a year old, raised not in a burrow but in a 'form', a shallow dip in the grass that hares use for shelter.

What do a hare's big ears help it do?

A hare's large ears are packed with blood vessels that shed heat, helping it cool down; they also make hares excellent at hearing danger.

Chickens were tamed from which wild bird?

The red junglefowl of southern Asia is the chicken's wild ancestor, and many archaeologists think people first kept it for cockfighting rather than for meat or eggs.

About how many eggs can a laying hen produce in a year?

300 eggs a year is nearly one a day, close to the limit for a hen bred for laying, since each egg takes about a day to form.

What is a chicken called in Australia and New Zealand?

A chook is Australian and New Zealand slang for a chicken, and Australian pubs and clubs hold 'chook raffles' in which the prize is a chicken for the dinner table.

Which bird lays the largest egg of any living bird?

Ostrich eggs are the largest laid by any living bird, about 15 centimetres long, yet each one is small for the size of the bird that lays it.

Which of these birds lays the smallest egg?

Bee hummingbird eggs are about the size of a coffee bean, and the female builds the nest for them by herself out of bark and spider webs.

What do some baby birds use to crack open their eggshell?

The egg tooth is a temporary hard bump on the tip of the beak that a chick uses to break the shell; it falls off soon after hatching.

Why does an eggshell have tiny holes in it?

To let oxygen in: a hen's egg has thousands of tiny pores that let air and moisture pass, while a thin outer coating helps keep bacteria and dust out.

What gives an American robin's eggs their blue colour?

A pigment called biliverdin colours blue and green eggshells; blue shells hold far more of it than brown ones, which get their colour from a second pigment.

Which of these birds lays the largest clutch of eggs in one nest?

A grey partridge hen lays about 15 eggs in a single ground nest, while a condor lays just one.

What is a baby sheep called?

A lamb is a baby sheep, and it became an Easter symbol because Christians call Jesus the Lamb of God, one reason roast lamb is a traditional Easter meal.

What is a group of sheep called?

A flock is a group of sheep, and its members follow one another so closely that when one sets off the rest usually go too, even when the choice is a poor one.

What is a sheep's woolly coat called?

A fleece is a sheep's woolly coat; on most breeds the wool never stops growing, so the sheep has to be shorn at least once a year.

How many stages are in a butterfly's life cycle?

Four stages make up a butterfly's life: egg, larva, pupa and adult; insects such as grasshoppers skip the pupa and grow up through just three.

What is a butterfly called while it is a larva?

A butterfly larva is a caterpillar; it feeds on the leaves the egg was laid on and sheds its skin as it grows.

What does the larva turn into before it becomes a butterfly?

A chrysalis is the hard case of the pupa; inside it the larva's body is broken down and rebuilt, until the case splits and the butterfly climbs out.

Which butterfly is famous for migrating long distances?

Monarch butterflies fly thousands of kilometres from as far north as Canada to mountain forests in central Mexico, yet none makes the round trip: the journey back north takes several generations.

On the March equinox, day and night are each about how long?

12 hours each is about right, and the name says so: equinox comes from the Latin for 'equal night'.

Easter arrives as the Northern Hemisphere warms up; what season is it then in the Southern Hemisphere?

Autumn: the seasons are reversed south of the equator, so in Australia spring does not begin until September.

Which three months are spring in the United States and the United Kingdom?

March, April, May is spring on the weather forecasters' calendar, which uses whole months so that one year's season can be compared neatly with another's.

Easter Island, named by Dutch sailors for the day they first arrived, is famous for what?

Giant stone statues called moai made the island famous, yet every one set up on a platform was later toppled; those standing there today were raised again in modern times.

On the equinox, where does the Sun rise?

Straight east is where the Sun rises on an equinox, and it sets straight west; these are the only two days of the year when that holds all over the world.

What does Easter celebrate for Christians?

Jesus rising from the dead is what Easter celebrates: Christians believe it happened on the third day after his crucifixion, which makes Easter the most important date in their calendar.

Does Easter fall on the same date every year?

No, it moves around: Easter can fall on any Sunday from March 22 to April 25, because its date follows the Moon.

Easter comes on the Sunday after the full moon that follows what?

The spring equinox starts the count for Western churches; Orthodox churches work it out on the older Julian calendar, so their Easter usually falls later.

Which flower traditionally decorates churches at Easter?

The lily sold at Easter is native to southern Japan, yet nearly every Easter lily in North America now starts as a bulb grown on the Oregon and California coast.

The word Easter may come from the name of what?

Bede wrote that the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre gave her name to the month now called April, and the word Easter may come from her.

How many days long is Lent, the season before Easter?

40 days, not counting Sundays, is the length of Lent, echoing the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness.

What do many people eat on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent begins?

Pancakes used up the eggs and sugar that were off the menu during Lent, which is why Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pancake Day.

The Easter season lasts seven weeks and ends on which feast?

Pentecost takes its name from the Greek for 'fiftieth': it falls on the fiftieth day of Easter and recalls the Holy Spirit coming down on Jesus's followers.

What shape is marked on top of the spiced buns eaten on Good Friday?

A cross of paste or icing tops the hot cross bun, recalling the crucifixion; in 1592 London bakers were banned from selling spiced buns except at burials, on Good Friday and at Christmas.

According to English folklore, a spiced bun baked on Good Friday would do what?

Never go mouldy for a year, held the folklore, so families kept one Good Friday bun hanging in the kitchen and swapped it for a fresh one the next Easter.

On the Thursday before Easter, what does Britain's king or queen hand out to pensioners?

Specially minted coins go to as many men and as many women as the sovereign has years: 74 of each in 2023, when the King was 74.

A simnel cake's marzipan balls stand for which group?

The apostles are the answer, which is why the cake usually carries eleven balls rather than twelve: Judas, who betrayed Jesus, is left off.

What are Peeps made of?

Marshmallow was once squeezed into each chick by hand through a pastry tube; machines took over in the 1950s and now shape a Peep in minutes.

Peeps are made in Bethlehem, a city in which US state?

Pennsylvania is home to Just Born, the Bethlehem candy maker that bought the Rodda Candy Company in 1953 and mechanised its hand-made Easter chicks.

What is inside a Cadbury Creme Egg?

The chocolate shell holds a sweet white and yellow fondant made to look like the white and yolk of a soft-boiled egg.

Which company's name was on the Cadbury Creme Egg when it first came out in 1963?

Fry's, the Bristol chocolate firm that had merged with Cadbury in 1919, launched it as the Fry's Creme Egg; the Cadbury name went on the wrapper in 1971.

Most chocolate bunnies are what on the inside?

Hollow is the usual way: two bunny-shaped moulds are filled with chocolate, joined together and shaken by machine so that the chocolate sets as an even shell.

Which chocolate maker sells a gold-foil bunny wearing a ribbon and a little bell?

Lindt guards its Gold Bunny in court: in 2012 Austria's top court ruled that a rival chocolate maker could no longer produce its own golden hare with a ribbon.

Why did jelly beans become an Easter candy in the 1930s?

They are shaped like little eggs, so in the 1930s jelly beans joined the Easter sweets; until then they had been everyday penny candy, sold by weight from glass jars.

Which US president loved jelly beans?

Ronald Reagan was so fond of them that three and a half tons of jelly beans were shipped to Washington for his 1981 inauguration.

What is inside a Kinder Surprise egg?

A small toy in a capsule is hidden inside each egg, and the capsule is yellow on purpose: it is meant to look like the yolk when the chocolate is cracked open.

Kinder Surprise copies an Easter tradition from which country?

Kinder Surprise, launched by Italy's Ferrero in 1974, copies the Italian custom of giving children large chocolate eggs with a toy inside.

Kinder Surprise eggs cannot legally be sold in which country?

United States law bars them: a 1938 food act forbids sweets with a non-food object embedded inside, because a child could choke on it.

In Australia, which long-eared native animal is sold in chocolate instead of a bunny?

The bilby, a rabbit-eared marsupial, has been promoted as Australia's answer to the Easter Bunny, to raise awareness of its plight and of the damage done by introduced rabbits.

Fabergé eggs were made as Easter presents for which country's royal family?

Russia's tsars ordered the jewelled eggs as Easter gifts for the empresses of the family from 1885, a custom that ended with the revolution of 1917.

The first Fabergé egg, made in 1885, opened to reveal a yolk with what inside?

A golden hen with ruby eyes sat inside the yolk, and the hen itself once hid a tiny copy of the imperial crown, which has since been lost.

What is an Easter bonnet?

A new fancy hat was the finishing touch to the old custom of wearing new clothes at Easter, which stood for a fresh start along with the new season.

Which New York street is famous for its Easter parade?

Fifth Avenue's parade grew out of well-off New Yorkers leaving the avenue's churches after Easter services and strolling along it to show off their new outfits.

In Sweden, children dress up as what during the Easter holidays?

Little witches is the costume: children go door to door swapping greetings for sweets, after an old legend that witches flew off on broomsticks just before Easter.

Which spring flower with a yellow trumpet is a common Easter symbol?

Daffodil trumpets open around Easter, and every part of the plant is poisonous, which is why the mice and squirrels that dig up tulip bulbs leave daffodils alone.

What is often put in the bottom of an Easter hamper to make it look like a nest?

Straw, real or artificial, makes the hamper look like a bird's nest, an echo of the nests children once built for the Easter Hare to lay its eggs in.

Which slogan has Peeps used to tell shoppers when the candy is on sale?

Peeps' slogan is 'Always in Season', a nod to the Easter chicks and bunnies being joined by Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's Day shapes.