Easter is coming! Easter is a spring holiday with origins deeply rooted in religion—its icons of the Easter Bunny and decorated Easter eggs have been associated with fertility, rebirth, and resurrection. Nowadays, many families simply like egg dyeing and Easter egg hunts as fun activities to do together on Easter Sunday. But there are other activities you can add to your Easter celebration to breathe new life into the traditions!

This Easter you can make even more of an event out of your celebration by decorating puzzles along with your Easter eggs. Original Hobby offers a variety of three-dimensional wooden puzzles that you can assemble and paint yourself! Each puzzle comes with a set of paints and precut shapes that you piece together to create a model. You can build a wooden motorcycle, boat, helicopter, airplane, and many more vehicles—some puzzles (e.g. the windmill and the monster truck) are even solar powered.

Take your imagination out for a ride in these vehicle-themed wooden puzzles

For a big Easter get-together, these wooden puzzles could be part of an arts and crafts party. If you’ve invited your whole family over, or if your kids have friends arriving, then preparing another activity ensures that everyone is occupied and enjoying themselves. You can set up a table with the eggs, paints, dyes, and the new addition of the wooden puzzles, along with other supplies: glitter, fabric to wrap around the eggs or models, tissue paper, watercolors, etc.

Families have been dyeing Easter eggs for generations, which fosters creativity and individuality with colors and designs. Puzzles can act as even more of an educational tool for Easter, as children are encouraged to be creative and innovative in their exploration of design and engineering concepts. By assembling one of these puzzles, children (and adults) practice problem-solving, spatial visualization, motor skills, and imagination.

Because these puzzles can be appreciated by children of all ages, they give something for the older kids and adults to do while the younger kids dye and hunt for eggs. Older kids can assemble and play with their own toys while the toddlers and babies are the center of attention, dyeing eggs and wandering around the backyard “hunting.” The wooden puzzles also give something for adults to do while kids are dyeing eggs. The puzzles (and any other crafts) open room at the table for people who may be interested in assembling and painting their own model toys rather than just watching kids have all the fun.

You don't have to worry about swapping out the batteries in this solar-powered wooden monster truck

After everyone is finished dyeing eggs and assembling and painting their puzzles, you can hide the eggs in the backyard and set the solar-powered puzzles out to charge. While you’re inside eating or otherwise amusing yourselves, the spring sun charges the puzzles. When it’s time for the Easter egg hunt, the solar-powered puzzles will be fully charged and ready for play. Or, if the weather isn’t cooperating, you can stay warm and dry and enjoy the puzzles indoors, saving the solar-powered ones for a sunny day.

As a replacement for Easter eggs, wooden puzzles work well because you won’t have to hollow out the eggs yourself or clean up broken shells. It’s a messy business to hollow out eggs for decoration: you need to poke holes in each end and blow out the contents. With the wooden puzzles, assembly instructions are included, so children can help with the setup and be more engaged from the start. Additionally, real eggs can get a bit smelly if left out for too long and break apart easily, so children’s egg artwork is usually thrown out at the end of the day. If you use the wooden puzzles, they won’t smell (they shouldn’t smell, anyway), and you can keep them forever as a display item or toy. If you don’t paint them, you can take apart the puzzles and reassemble them anytime you wish. As for substitute eggs, plastic ones are easy to decorate, but they usually come already colored, so a lot of the creativity and excitement in decoration is lost. Chocolate eggs are harder to decorate and, once hidden outside, may melt in the sun and never be found. The wooden puzzles provide opportunities for longer-lasting creativity and fun—without the mess.

Who hid these plastic eggs in the middle of the lawn?

It might be a bit of a stretch for some—turning Easter into a puzzle party when there are centuries of history behind Easter eggs—but we believe that there’s plenty of room for new traditions, especially where there is so much potential.