Dye-ing for an Easter egg

Before you begin 

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here.  Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely. 
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers. 

Setting up this activity 

• You may want to put wipeable tablecloths down or use newspapers to protect the surfaces from the dye. 
• You may want to ask everyone to wear old clothes and wear plastic gloves to protect their hands from being dyed. Remember to check for any skin allergies or sensitivities. 
• You could also run this activity outside to prevent mess. 
• Remember to check for allergies or dietary requirements and adjust the recipe as needed. 

Egg-cellent dyeing   

1. Place eggs in a saucepan, cover them with water and boil the eggs for 10 minutes. Make sure there’s only one layer of eggs to prevent cracking, so eggs shouldn’t be stacked on top of each other. 
2. While the eggs boiling, fill a large bowl some cold water and add the ice. Make sure an adult volunteer is supervising the eggs boiling at all times and the pan handle is turned in, so it can’t be knocked. 
3. After 10 minutes, an adult volunteer should carefully drain the eggs over a sink and place them in the icy water to cool them quickly. Use heat protective equipment, such as tea towels or an oven mitt, as needed, and ask young people to stand back from the boiling water. 
4. In each pan, you should mix 100ml of boiling water (from a kettle), with 1 teaspoon of vinegar, and 10 to 20 drops of a chosen food colouring. An adult volunteer should either add or closely supervise the use of the kettle and pouring boiling water. You could add more or less food colouring, depending on how bright you want the colour. 
5. Using tongs, people should put their egg in the coloured water and leave it for five minutes. You could crack the shells slightly before putting them in the water if wanted to create a crack effect on the egg. 
6. While the eggs are soaking, lay the paper towels, old tea towels or newspapers on the kitchen side or table. Place the cooling rack over the top. 
7. After five minutes, use tongs to remove the eggs from the water and leave them dry on the cooling racks. 
8. When the eggs are dry, crack them open to see how well the dyeing process worked. 
9. You could experiment by adding the egg to different colours and cracking or peeling off bits of the egg’s shell to create patterns.