Egg Decorating and Egg Hunts: Seven Strategies for Fun and Learning

Spending time in active play with your children can help them develop the physical and mental skills necessary for success in their later academic pursuits. Fun and easy activities like decorating eggs and searching for them in your home or backyard can stimulate your child’s creativity and instill a love of learning that can last throughout their lives. Here are seven fun egg activities that will delight and entertain even the youngest toddlers.

1. Go with Glitter

Double-sided tape or adhesive spots can be used on hard-boiled eggs to create patterns. Dipping these eggs in glitter can produce sparkly decorated eggs fit for any prince or princess. Using various colors of glitter can create a beautiful multilayered effect for your completed eggs. Best of all, any spills can easily be swept up to make clean-up time a breeze.

2. Spell It Out

Adhesive letters are available at most craft stores and can allow toddlers to learn while they play. By helping your child spell out various words and names on pre-decorated or plain eggs, you can build confidence levels and ensure a positive response in the learning environment.

3. Glue It On

Using safety scissors to cut out shapes from brightly colored tissue paper or napkins can be fun for your young ones and can help them develop the motor skills they will need later in their academic careers. Nontoxic glue can be used to adhere these original designs to eggs for a beautiful mosaic effect that your child can display with pride.

4. Make it a Family Affair

Even the youngest children can enjoy drawing faces on hard-boiled eggs to create their own unique characters. This process can be made even more fun by suggesting that your child draw each member of your family. From grandparents right down to younger siblings, these personalized eggs can allow your child to stretch his or her creative talent to the fullest. Adding a few finishing touches with felt and ribbon can ensure that each egg is easy to recognize and can increase self-confidence and pride in their artistic abilities.

5. Button Up

Colorful buttons can be used to decorate eggs and look especially festive when thin ribbons are laced through the eyelets. Your child will love creating his or her own designs by gluing these items to hard-boiled eggs. For younger toddlers close supervision will be required to ensure that these items are not accidentally swallowed.

6. Hide and Seek

Especially for older preschoolers, switching roles in who hides the eggs and who finds them can make any egg hunt more enjoyable. Eggs emblazoned with letters of the alphabet can be used to spell out words as part of the process. This can help younger children with reading readiness and can help older children learn to spell simple words correctly.

7. Explore the Great Outdoors

An outdoor egg hunt is much more fun when children search for their own decorated eggs. These activities can allow you and your child to explore the natural world in the safety of your own back yard. By taking time out to look at flowers, trees, birds and butterflies, you can help your young ones develop a basic understanding of the changing seasons and the wonders of nature.