4+
A race of balance and co-ordination, the egg and spoon race is a classic game that will have kids laughing right up to the finish line!
Arrange all of the children at a start line with an egg and a teaspoon each.
When you are ready to start the race, ask them to place the egg onto their spoon and then place their other arm behind their back.
When you say go, the children will race - as fast as they can without the egg rolling off the spoon - to the finish line.
If the egg falls, the child starts again!
Whoever crosses the finish line first with their egg still balanced on their spoon and an arm behind their back, wins.
Competitors race either individually or in teams in the manner of a relay race.[1][3] If the egg falls from the spoon then competitors may be required to stop, retrieve, and reposition their egg;[10] or to start again;[1][11] or may even be disqualified.[12] Due to the lesser penalty imposed for dropping the egg, and consequent encouragement of greater risk-taking, the first penalty scenario may result in a race that is faster overall.[10] It is generally regarded as cheating to stick the egg to the spoon or to hold on to it with one's finger.[13] For an extra challenge, contestants might carry the spoon with both hands, in their mouths, or have their hands tied behind their backs.[4][14][15] Squabbles are to be avoided in the eventuality of fumbling one's egg.[16]
In some schools the attendance of parents is prohibited or alternative non-competitive events staged, with the intention of sparing children the embarrassment and stigma of defeat.[17][18] In others, the use of raw eggs is banned on the grounds of health and safety and fears of allergy or of competitors contracting salmonella through accidental ingestion of the contents of a broken egg.[11][18] Hard-boiled, wooden, ceramic or synthetic eggs may be used in their stead, or alternative substitutes such as potatoes, small balls, or jelly.[18] Punitive insurance premiums have also resulted in the cancellation of some events.[19] The phrase "egg and spoon" features in The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English; its use, along with the idiom good egg with which it is sometimes confused, is frowned upon by the Metropolitan Police Service on the grounds of it being derogatory and rhyming slang for "coon"