Easter is one of my favourite holidays combining things I love: An extra long weekend, time with family and plenty of delicious chocolate! It can also be a great opportunity to build your child’s oral language skills all the while having plenty of fun.
Easter Traditions
We know each family celebrates Easter in their own way, however there are popular traditions that many also take part in. An Easter egg hunt is one of my favourite Easter activities and traditions. Not only do most kids love participating, an egg hunt can also be a fantastic way to target language skills!
The Easter Egg Hunt
Picture this: A backyard humming with excited kids clutching baskets eagerly, awaiting your ‘go ahead’ to begin the hunt for eggs. Let’s talk about how we can build language into this activity.
Location Concepts
You will be hiding the eggs all around the yard (or house, or both!), placing them in strategic locations, ‘under’, ‘in’, ‘next to’ and ‘beside’ items. You can model these words when helping younger children find their treasure (e.g. “Look! What’s under the table?”), or for older children, you can ask them where they found their eggs. Make sure you repeat and emphasise the key location word or concept.
Verbs – Action words
As your child is hunting for eggs, yell out an ‘stop’ or ‘freeze’. Then give your child an instruction, for example; ‘Now skip until you find the next egg’, ‘jump to your next eggs’, ‘waddle to the next egg’. You can work on the verbs; jump, run, skip, crawl, walk, roll, etc.
Same and Different Concepts
Once your child has found the eggs, you can group them into like categories based on size, colour, design, etc. Describe the different eggs using varied vocabulary, for example:
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Size: big, little, tiny, large, gigantic – You could even ask your child to arrange the eggs from smallest to largest.
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Colours: classic (blue, red, pink, green) and abstract colours (aqua, violet)
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Patterns: stripes, dots, swirls, squiggles etc.
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Textures: smooth and rough
You can then extend the discussion by asking your child to describe how two eggs are the same and how they are different. For example, they are both made of chocolate, but one might have a pink wrapper and the other might have a blue wrapper.
You can target specific concepts. For example, ask your child find “big” and “little” examples of their eggs e.g. “Find a BIG egg for Pop”, or “Find a LITTLE egg to give to your sister”.
For more information about working on language goals, check out our other blog posts.
Have a wonderful, safe and happy Easter!