Just when you thought Christmas was filled with lots of fun activities, along came Easter! Complete with furry bunnies and fuzzy chicks, plastic eggs waiting to be filled with fun surprises, and so many great opportunities for building language skills!
Our therapy sessions have been filled with lots of fun Easter themed activities, from egg filled sensory bins, to hopping bunnies on parachutes, and carrot treasure hunts to feed a hungry bunny. Our little ones have been having so much fun and learning such great new vocabulary that we had to write a post to share some of these activities for you to try in your homes, classrooms or clinics. We'll also be sharing more of these in our stories and highlights on our Instagram page.
Here's some of what we've been up to:
Sensory Bins
If you follow our posts or watch our live chats you would have realised by now that we absolutely love sensory bins. They keep children engaged for hours (well maybe not hours but a pretty long time) and provide many opportunities for targeting language goals. Our little ones loved opening eggs and finding surprises to play with, show, and talk about. Check out our recent post about Spring/Easter sensory bins here on our page.
Parachute Play
There's something about the movement, feel, and vibrant colours of parachutes that scream sensory heaven for little ones, and provide great opportunities for engagement and interactive moments. Add some catchy sounds and movement games and you have the perfect activity.
Over the past couple weeks we've added some Easter themed fun to our parachute play which has been a hit with everyone. Can you imagine colourful eggs bouncing around on a parachute to the beat of "This is the way we shake shake shake?" or a bunny hopping high across the parachute to the "Hop little bunny" song? These activities are perfect for action words such as
"hop," "shake," "stop," go", "come back," "fall down," "bump," "sleep," sit down," "put on," take off," "open."
They're also great for concepts such as
"up/down", "fast/slow," "over/under," "high" "in/out"
Craftivities
A quick Pinterest search for Easter crafts will find you loads of ideas from hand print chicks to cotton ball bunnies. Craftivities are perfect activities for creating repetitive routines, and great for following directions, building vocabulary (not only for items you're making, but also actions like "squeeze," "stick," "tear," "pour," etc.), working on imitation and turn taking, as well as developing those fine motor skills through fun activities. Some of our favourites which we found through Pinterest and made are shown below.
Window Fun
Seasonal Easter gel window clings are another fun way to talk about vocabulary related to the holiday and time of year. Help your little one to "peel" and "put on" while modeling simple phrases to describe what your child is doing ex: "peel bunny", or "put on butterfly".
Bunny Hunt
Our "feed the bunny" hunt has been a hit in therapy sessions and a winner for encouraging language. Hide printed or toy carrots around the room, or if it's warm enough, take it outside to the garden. When your little one finds a carrot, model "found it" or "found a carrot" or even "Yayyyy" and take it to feed the bunny (stuffed animal or cardboard cut out).
You can then use simple phrases such as "bunny eat" "eat carrots" " yummy" "chomp chomp" to make the experience fun while learning new vocabulary.
Feel ready to get out there and have some Easter theme fun? Tag us in your posts and Insta-stories and let us know what activities you're doing! Happy Egg-hunting!