Spring is here in Chicago and with spring comes all things flowers, rain, sunshine, gardening, and eggs. Egg hunts have always been a favorite in our house (as I’m sure they are in many homes!) and plastic eggs can be used for so many great literacy activities. With a quick Google or Pinterest search, you will find dozens of fun ways to use plastic eggs to practice both literacy and math skills.
Since my boys are both working on different skills, I used the eggs to create two different activities for them. They enjoyed being able to hunt for eggs together! Once they finished hunting, they opened up their eggs and worked on their individual activities.
Alphabet Picture Matching
My 3.5 year old is working on letter sounds, so his goal today was to match pictures to their appropriate beginning letter. Below is a list of the materials we used for his activity. We recently picked up these magnetic pictures and they have been a great addition to our learning materials!
Materials
Plastic Eggs
Magnetic Letters (this set is also great. I prefer letters that have red vowels and blue consonants for later phonics work)
Magnetic Surface (we have an oil drip pan I found at Walmart, which is a nice large surface, but you could use your refrigerator, radiator cover, baking sheet, etc.!)
Earlier in the week, we worked to match the pictures to their beginning sounds on the oil drip pan, so to set up this activity, I just removed a few of the pictures and put them in the eggs. Once my preschooler collected all of his eggs, I made up a fun little story for him! I said, “Oh no! The pictures are lost. Can you help them find their home by matching them to their beginning letter?” He went through each picture and matched them to their beginning letter on the drip pan. As he placed them next to the correct letter, we said the name of the picture and the letter sound.
Sight Word Egg Hunt
My 6 year old is working on building his sight word vocabulary, so I prepared a sight word activity for him. For this activity, you’ll need materials below.
Materials
Plastic Eggs
Blank Paper
Lined Paper (we love these primary journals from Amazon)
Pencil
Preparing this activity was super simple! I have a list of sight words that my son is working on, so I selected 6 of those words and wrote each word on a small slip of blank paper. I tucked one sight word in each egg and hid them around the house. Then, I wrote out a sentence for each sight word, with a blank where the sight word belonged. When practicing sight words, we always use the words within context in addition to practicing them in isolation so that we stay focused on the meaning in addition to being able to read the word quickly and fluently.
With just a few simple materials and a few minutes to prepare, you can integrate some literacy learning into your spring and Easter traditions. I hope this is a fun activity for you and your kiddos!
Keep Reading!
Jill :)
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