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Easter Egg Activity for Toddlers
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It’s hard juggling my OT hat and Mom hat. The OT-Mom hat is my ultimate goal everyday, but it doesn’t always happen! Recently, I’ve been feeling so guilty with all the time and effort I’ve been putting into planning fun treatment sessions for my clients and then coming home to read the same book and play the same picnic game with my 21 month old. I found a little inspiration with the Easter theme and wanted to plan an Easter activity for toddlers. So, I got a little excited when I went to the Target dollar section and found these super cute Easter eggs, crinkle paper fillers and rubber porcupine balls! It had sensory bin screaming all over it. Then I grabbed these Melissa & Doug set of magnet letters, which I had been meaning to purchase for quite some time, and before I knew it, I had my afternoon mommy-OT date planned for my little one.
Step 1: Fill Easter Basket with sensory filler and Eggs filled with letters and porcupine balls.
Step 2: Explore!
My little one tends to be on the sensitive side of tactile processing, so as soon as she saw the crinkle paper she immediately removed it with limited contact (see how she’s barely touching it with her finger tips?). After that, she decided to dump out the whole basket of eggs and watch them fall and crash to the floor! I really gave her no instructions or structure for this part, just kind of let her do what she wanted.
Step 3: Open Eggs!
For this part, I did show her that the eggs could open and how to use both her hands for twisting and opening. As she pulled out the letters, we talked about what letter they were, their sound, and what color the letter was.
I placed a cookie sheet to the side of her so she could stick the magnet letters on there. Pay attention to how it’s positioned to the side of her, so I could encourage crossing midline and trunk rotation. (Read more about crossing midline and it’s importance here)
Step 4: Clean up!
I’m a firm believer of including your kids in the clean up process. First, you don’t want them to just think that some magic fairy comes and cleans up after them when they leave the room! Second, you can make clean up fun and continue targeting some other developmental skills. Our clean up included dropping each letter into the tube the Easter eggs came in. It added some extra trunk rotation, visual perception, bilateral coordination and problem solving when the letter didn’t fit a certain way.
All in all, it was a successful afternoon activity. It kept her entertained for a good 20 minutes, which is great for her! Share your favorite Easter activity for toddlers below.