5 Easter Egg Learning Activities

Neon and pastel plastic eggs hit the shelves every year in...February? They are inexpensive, and once Easter is over, easter egg halves seem to find their place under the sofa, in the toy box, in my purse, the bathtub, and any other place where you swear you have cleaned and de-cluttered 5 times already and they keep showing up. My suggestion, save them. As soon as the candy is out, collect them for some fun learning activities. I couldn't wait so bought them and I'm using them already.  On Easter, my boys hopefully won't notice that they have letters drawn in sharpie on their eggs. I'm sure in their zombie like hunt for candy they wont even pause to notice the Capital "A" and lower case "a" on their eggs.  Until then, they are going to learn their letters and colors, letter sounds etc. all using the eggs.

5 Easter Egg Learning Activities

1. Capital "A" and lower case "a"

Using a permanent marker, write the upper case letter on one half of the egg, and the lower case letter on the other half. I put them all in a bowl seperated from each other and have my son match the letters together. If you want to make it more challenging you can put the matching letters on different colored egg halves rather than the same color as shown.

2. What starts with "A"?

I tried to look for small pictures that I could print out then cut into pieces to fill each egg with of items matching each letter of the alphabet....Then I remembered the alphabet flash card pack I got at the dollar store, had a "cheat sheet" in the pack that showed each upper and lowercase letter and a picture. So I cut them up and placed each letter/picture in each matching egg. Shown Below:

3. Hide and Seek sounds

T is for Turtle. For a game, you can "hide" the eggs around the house, the kids can find them. Once found, you can talk about what starts with the letter on the egg. **If you can hide the eggs near items beginning with that letter, it would be even better but is sometimes difficult.

4. Pick an egg, any egg!

I put all of the matched eggs in a bowl and my son picks one out at a time, he tells me what letter is on the egg and he thinks of a word that starts with the letter. Then he writes down the letter he chose and I write out the corresponding word he thought of and he copies the word.

5. Color matching for the little ones

For my 2 year old son, who refuses to be left out, I give him a bowl of un-matched eggs and show him how to match the colors together. I put two together that don't match and in my silly mom voice, I say "Do these look the same? do they match?" He laughs and says "Noooo!" Then I put together two matching halves and say "Do these look the same? Do they match?" he laughs and says "Oh yeah!" Then I ask him to put them together, make them look the same, or match. He attempts to match the color, sometimes he does sometimes the eggs become a caterpillar etc. either way he is still developing fine motor skills etc.

Here are some other ideas I found on Pinterest that use plastic Easter eggs as well: Play Create Explore and Here

Enjoy!

The Timer - Be more productive and spend time with your kids

1 simple solution to getting more done, staying on task, and fulfilling that simple promise of reading a book (etc.) to your kids and not putting them off all day.

You hear...

 "MOM, mom, MOOOOOM, Mom? Mom!" 

And the Kids hear.... 

"In a minute, Later, Maybe, Not right now, I said later, Yes but not now" 

That's what I hear all day, and unfortunately that's also what my kids hear sometimes as well. Its not that I wouldn't love to drop what I'm doing and color with them, read a book, play super hero's etc - That's what being a fun mom is all about! But I also need to balance and complete sweeping the kitchen, unloading and sorting the groceries, folding the laundry and everything else on my list. 

By the time the day goes by, I'm so tired that I've moved on to the bedtime routine, the kids go to sleep- eventually, and then I remember - I never read them the pirate book they asked me to. It would have taken me 5 minutes and yet I kept putting them off. Bad mother of the day award goes to me. 

Here is a solution, this was old, tried and true, inspiration given to me and tested by my Mom and Sister in Law:

 Setting The Timer

That's right, who knew that setting a timer could bring world peace, or at least a little more sanity!

I need 30 minutes to put the groceries away, wipe down the counters and get the dishes into the dishwasher and start it. My 5 year old wants me to help him with his color and activity book NOW. 

You might be thinking - Just help him! But all I want is just to finish something without interruption -I know I'm not the only one! I don't feel guilty about feeling this way either!

If I tell him "in a minute" he will be asking me EVERY single minute if I'm done and when I'm going to help him.

Instead I set the timer for 30 minutes. That sounds like a long time for a kid to wait, but he can watch the minutes go down and he knows not to bug me until he hears the beep. This works for younger kids to, my 2 year old gets it as well. He has plenty to do during that time. I commit to myself that when the beep goes off I will stop what I'm doing and give him my undivided attention. 

You MUST not give in and secretly add minutes to the timer. 

The other win-win, is that you are racing to get what you need done, maybe if you give yourself less time you will get more done faster! Make it fun!

Another example:

"Mom, when is dinner ready?"

"In 5 minutes, I'm setting the timer, when you hear the beep you can come sit at the table"

This method saves you from the "MOM, mom, MOOOOOM, Mom? Mom!" and your kids gain more trust in you, that you will follow through with their requests! You can use this for simple things for even when you need 5 minutes to do something simple.

 For this to work you MUST follow through on your part if you expect them to wait. If my kids start "momming" me before the beep sounds I just remind them the timer hasn't beeped yet. 

I have been using this all week and our house has been so much more peaceful and happy for everyone! 

Colors, Letters, and Words Activity for $1

Learning Colors, Letters and Words all in one FUN activity that only costs $1 to make!

Using FREE paint swatches from my local store, a set of clothes pins from the dollar store, and a permanent marker; I made an activity for my boys to match up the clothes pins marked with a letter to the letters on their paint swatches. Each square of color helps for easy identification and understanding various shades of the same color.

What are they learning:
Colors: You can write the color word on the paint swatch so they can associate the word and the color together.
Letters: They are matching letters together.
Words: They are learning a word as they match.

Examples of Paint swatch words outside of words for colors:
Sun (yellow)
Grass (green)
Sky (blue)
Cloud (white)
Heart (red)
Dark (gray)
Dog (brown)
etc.

I tried to match up each word with a color that best matches with it but you can use any color for any word.

I had my boys play with them last night, My 2 year old had fun just clipping each letter and my 4 year old was so proud of himself that he was matching the letters and sounding out the word. I ended up having to pry them away so they could get ready for bedtime!

Kid tested, Mother approved!