Easter Activities!

Happy Easter (or Happy Spring if you're not celebrating Easter)!  Any holiday is a great excuse to do some fun activities that are out of the everyday norm.  And these activities are not only fun, but also actually work on lots of developmental skills.  Some of them might even be family traditions that you already do and didn't even know were secretly good for your kids development!

Easter Egg Hunt
Did you know that easter egg hunts are great for working on so many developmental skills? To name a few: visual scanning and other visual/perceptual skills, reasoning skills, and some gross motor skills, like running. 
- If you want to up the challenge for your kids, hide the eggs in some hard to reach places to work on other gross motor skills, like climbing and balance.  Also, opening up the eggs and putting the two halves back together works on bilateral coordination (using the two sides of the body together) - a very important skill.
- To add an academic challenge, label the eggs with a letter on each that spell a word when put together correctly; if using multiple colors, have a word for each color and if you have more than 1 kid searching for eggs they will have to work together to combine their eggs to spell the words.  For younger children label eggs with letters or shapes to work on those early learning concepts (craft stores have fun foam stickers in letters, numbers, and shapes which would be fun to put on the eggs). 
- To cut down on sugar overload, fill eggs with non-candy items like, coins (then have older kids do some math with the money they collect), stickers, fortunes, silly bands, etc.
- To increase the cognitive challenge for older kids, turn the egg hunt into a scavenger hunt with clues in each egg leading to the easter basket at the end.
- If you have adolescents who are "too old" for an easter egg hunt, include them in the task of setting up a hunt for younger kids in the family or the neighborhood.

Easter Relay Race
Get the whole family involved in an easter themed relay race!  Each family member performs actions like, bunny hop, skip, hop backwards, or walk like a duck from point A to point B to see which team wins. Doing these actions works on motor planning, gross motor skills, coordination, and all the movement is good for kids too!  Plus, it's really fun, especially if you have a lot of family members involved - including the adults!

Decorating Eggs
However you want to do it, decorating easter eggs is a great opportunity to work on fine motor skills, creativity, sequencing and planning.  For some boys (and even girls) who are typically "too fast" and "too rough" with their movements, handling a delicate egg is a good way to help slow them down and work on being gentle with their movements.  But make sure to give these types of kids lots of preparation ahead of time on being slow and gentle, lots of cues during the activity if you notice them ramping up, and lots of praise for doing well throughout the task.

Outside Toys and Games
Easter is a great time to start pulling out the outside toys and games (or give new ones in the easter basket) because nice spring weather is usually ramping up and it's a great time to be outside.  Sidewalk chalk, jump ropes, kickballs, bubbles, velcro toss and catch, kites, etc. are examples of inexpensive outside toys that can be found anywhere from local drug stores to Target to amazon.com.  So, bring some toys out in the backyard, play with them for a while, then sit back with your significant other and enjoy a nice adult drink while you smile at your children playing in the yard on a beautiful spring afternoon, knowing that they are having fun, doing great things for their little brains and bodies, and going to sleep well that night!

Easter Dinner Helpers
Involve your children in helping to prepare for easter dinner by cooking with you (see the earlier post Little Chef for tips on how to include children in cooking), setting the table, playing waitress/waiter with appetizer trays, and making decorations for the dinner table.  All of these activities work on a variety of skills and are fun for kids to do!

Grow Your Easter Decorations
If planting some spring flowers to use as decorations this Easter sounds appealing to you, then involve your children.  Picking out the flowers and materials together at the store gives them some ownership of the activity, increases motivation to stay involved, and makes them feel proud of the final product.   Helping to carry the materials works on muscle strength and endurance.  Following instructions step by step works on sequencing and planning.  Getting their hands in the soil is a great sensory experience.  Manipulating the tools and plants also works on fine motor skills.  And the end products are beautiful spring flowers in pots or your garden to celebrate the holiday.

These are just a sampling of activities to do with your family!  I'm sure your kids can come up with even more ideas if you ask them!  Now, get outside and have fun!