The term “Egg and Spoon Race” was first used on September 8th, 1894 in an article in the Daily News.

Firstly, it was played during a village celebration of Queen Victoria. From there on, it spread throughout the neighboring countries, and the races took place everywhere. Nowadays, some people take this game really seriously—there are even official world records!

I, however, just got to know it as a fun game on the birthdays of my kindergarten friends. It was always a highlight of the party and also an important tradition for us. I wanted to include that game here because I have very good memories connected to it. And it is such an energizing and entertaining game, I think that you can enjoy it too!
What do you need?
As you can already guess just from reading the title, you will need a spoon and an egg for every participant. I would recommend plastic eggs/ping pong balls, chocolate-or hard-boiled eggs to prevent the food from getting wasted. If a normal egg falls to the ground, you can’t eat it anymore, and it is a big mess.
Additionally, if you want to set up an obstacle course you need some kind of obstacles. But this is not necessary.

Who plays?
As I already told you, I used to play it as a child in kindergarten, which means around 4 and 6 years old. But I still think this game is also fun for older children. For some fun rules that will make the game harder, keep reading until the variations at the bottom of this page.

How to play “Egg and Spoon Race”?

The idea of this game is really easy. Every participant gets a spoon with an egg on it and has to balance the egg without it falling down from the starting to the ending line. It is a race, so the faster you walk, the better, but be careful; if the egg falls down, you get disqualified. The same goes for cheating in the form of using your hands to keep the egg on the spoon. Any kind of tape to keep the egg in place is also forbidden.

Variations
To make the game more difficult, you can set up an obstacle course through which the participants have to run. A wooden bar, rings to walk in or even small tasks like “turn around three times” or “stand on one foot for 10 seconds”. You can be creative with that, and it is a great way to adjust the difficulty of the game.
Another common way to play this game is to put the spoon in your mouth instead of holding it in your hands. You have to concentrate more because it is obviously pretty hard.
If you want to build small teams and make the game more interactive among the players, each player can tie one of their feet to the foot of another players. That way, you have to match your steps and be careful not to pull down the other player with you. I guarantee you this variation is a lot of fun and you should totally give it a try!
Another possibility to change up the race a little bit is to set up a relay race. First, you have to build two or more groups with at least two players in each. At the start point, the first racer of each team lines up, and the second one of each team at the end point. There they will hand off the egg to the next racer. Hereby, you have to make sure that the hand off is clear. Decide whether you want the racers to hand off their eggs or have the second racer ready to go with their own egg and spoon. That depends on your skill level!

Choose whatever way to play the game and remember to always have fun! And don’t forget to stop your time. Maybe you will beat a world record and get famous for your egg-and-spoon-race-skills!