Activity of the Month: Plastic Easter Eggs

This time of year, plastic eggs are easy to find in the stores , but chances are you already have several lying around your house. They are great for Easter egg hunts on Easter morning, but the fun doesn’t have to stop there. Here are just a few ways that we’ve used eggs to keep therapy and time at home with little ones fun!

Try serving lunch in plastic eggs. Kids love opening the eggs to check out what the next course of the meal will be. This is also a great way to make less preferred foods more fun!

• Fill the eggs with glowsticks and hide them in the yard at night or in a dark room. Everything is more fun when it glows in the dark. 

• Help build language skills by hiding pictures in eggs. This is an easy way to get a lot of language out of new little talkers and they love it! Hand your child a picture and ask, “What will you do?” Cue them to say, “Hide the ____,” as they place each picture into a different egg. Of course, activities like this can be modified a hundred different ways to fit the needs of your little one. You might cue them to say, “I’m going to hide the _____,”  if they’re more advanced, or simply imitate each word after you to target new vocabulary for younger kids, or maybe each word will start with a sound that’s challenging for your child to give them extra practice. The point is simply to provide opportunities for practice that meet your child’s needs. Once all of the eggs are full, hide the eggs around the room and have your child find one at a time. As they open each egg, ask them to tell you about it. Cue them to say, “I found ____,” with each new picture (or label the picture, or use their “good /b/ sound”, whatever…you get it!). I guarantee kids won’t even realize how much speech and language practice they’re really getting with this activity. 
• Fill each egg with a plastic letter. When the child reveals what’s inside, practice identifying the letter, saying the sound the letter makes, writing the letter, and/or identifying a word that starts with that letter. 

• Rather than having a kiddo copy a list of words on a worksheet to practice handwriting, fill the eggs with words and practice one word at a time. You could also fill each egg with a sight word to practice reading. 
  

• Target visual memory skills by using the eggs to cover pictures, snacks, or small toys and play memory. If they find a match, they get to eat the snack!
  
  

• Little ones can practice color matching while putting pom poms, jelly beans, or papers in matching eggs. 

• Place eggs on a spoon and work on balance and focus during relay races.