Help your child with reading and have fun!
These Easter egg activities may just convince you to leave those eggs out all year! Please, don’t be so quick to put away those plastic Easter eggs! They are an amazing teaching tool, and best of all, your kids won’t even realize they are practicing reading skills. These are my top 10 ways to use those plastic Easter eggs. If you’re looking for games to put in those Easter baskets, make sure to check out my favorite educational board games!
Skip down to the type of reader you have! Not sure which type of reader you have? Then take the quiz here to find out! No matter the age of your child, they will love these egg activities!
Easter Egg Activities for Toddlers & Preschoolers
1) Pom-pom Open & Shut
It’s not very hard to impress a toddler! Stick pom-poms in a few eggs, watch them open the eggs, then tell them to “clean up!” and put the pom-poms back into the eggs. My toddler will do this independently for almost twenty minutes! Therefore, I highly suggest you try this activity!
2) Pom-pom Matching
You can make this more complicated by matching colors or even putting numbers on the outside of the eggs and having them count the number of pom-poms (for preschoolers!). (I understand this is a math activity, but one-to-one correspondence is an important skill!).
Easter Egg Phonics Activities for Beginning Reader Ben
For more information on Beginning Reader Ben and recommended books for his level, take the quiz here!
3) Letters in Name Matching
If your child is just learning their letters, you can write a letter on the outside of the egg and have little scraps of paper with letters on them. Then, they pick the right letter and put the same letter inside of the egg.
4) ABC Chart Find
If you don’t want to write letters on your eggs, then stick the letter on a piece of paper inside the egg. After that, have them “crack it open” and match the letter to an ABC chart.
5) Letter Matching
Write uppercase and lowercase letters on the outside of the two halves of the eggs. (Please note, eggs would be in half at the start of this activity). Next, mix them up and have your child match them! In addition, to make this extra tricky, don’t always have the colors match!
6) All ABC Match
Write all of the lowercase letters on scraps of paper. Then, write all of the uppercase letters on the outside of the eggs (or vice versa). After that, have your child put the paper in the egg that matches. Please note, I only recommend this activity if your child is familiar with most letters. Matching 26 letters is tricky and can be overwhelming!
7) Sound Match
Put different pictures of items in eggs (or stickers work well too!). For instance, you could use a bunny, carrot, cat, dog, frog, etc. (stick with first sounds your child will recognize and stay away from digraphs like /sh/ /th/ and /ch/). First, have your child crack open the egg, say the name of the picture, exaggerate the sound “bunny starts with /b/.” Then, stick the picture next to that letter (on an ABC chart or just write down the letters before you start). Another option, if your child can write, write the letter on a post-it or piece of paper!
Sight Word & Comprehension Activities for Transitional Reader Taylors
Do you have a Transitional Reader Taylor? Grab her book list and strategies after you click here to take the quiz!
8) Sight Word Practice
Write different sight words your child is learning or knows on strips of paper and put them in the Easter egg. Have them crack it open and read the word to you. Another option is to practice writing the word in a fun pen. Keep the list and have them read it back to you, or find the egg that has that word in it again. Additionally, they could look for the word in a book they are reading. The possibilities are endless!
9) Comprehension Check
Write different comprehension questions on strips of paper and put them into an Easter egg, like “What is your favorite part? Why?” Read a picture book or a chapter of the book, then have your child pick one of the eggs and answer the question. (This activity could be for all readers!)
Easter Egg Writing Activity for Fluent Reader Freddies
Do you have a Fluent Reader Freddie? This next activity is perfect to help them write! Take the quiz to find out what type of reader you have!
10) Writing Practice
“Crack it open!” was one of my favorite activities to do in my fourth grade classroom! To set this up, first write boring sentences like:
- He was mad.
- She was sad.
- They ate dinner.
Then, place these in a plastic Easter egg. After that, have them “crack it open” with a more detailed sentence that SHOWS what your sentence said, not tells. So, for the first example, I may write:
“He stomped away from the table and slammed the door to his room. The walls shook because his brother stole his baseball card.”
In addition, you can even turn this into a game where you have to guess what the original sentence was!
Learn to Love to Read Activity Pack
If you loved these Easter egg activities, you may want to check out my Learn to Love to Read Activity Pack! First, take the quiz to find out what type of reader you have. Then, turn to that section of the book and practice those reading activities. Lastly, have FUN with reading!
