Easter egg play

As it is the easter week I wanted to think of new and exciting ideas to enjoy with Tom. This year I thought about using an Easter egg to print and paint with. Most Easter eggs have a pattern on the outside so I wanted to see if by rolling the egg in paint it would create the same pattern.

I started off by introducing Tom to the giant Easter egg. We explored it with the foil on first to get the magic of removing the foil and revealing the beautiful chocolate goodness beneath! Once we removed the wrapper we explored the smooth chocolate egg. The bonus about working with chocolate is that is smells great so adds an extra sensory part to the activity.

We then moved onto playing with the egg and the paint, this got messy!

This activity needed very little in terms of equipment. Tom uses a non slip mate under any activity as it supports him in making independent mark making. We then used everyday card, you can pick this up anywhere. We also used a paint tray to keep the paint and the card separate but you could always put the paint straight onto the card and get even more messy. The giant egg was found in the supermarket, you don't need to have a giant egg, but this worked well as Tom was able to place his hand inside.

Tom put his hand inside the chocolate Easter egg and used it as a chocolate boxing glove to move the paint around on the paper. We had such a lot of fun with this activity and Tom found it very amusing that his hand was inside a giant chocolate egg. The egg started to melt as Tom was playing with it which was awesome as the smell became more intense and Tom was really able to take it in.

We allow Tom to play for as long as he wants with any activity. Sometimes this can be a short amount of time and other times Tom really gets into it and we can do an activity for up to an hour. I don't push Tom to do something he doesn't want to do, but I support him with the activities that he shows a real interest in. When it came to painting with a giant chocolate Easter egg he was more than happy to play and this activity lasted around 45 minutes. This is a great amount of time for Tom to play with one thing.

Tom is becoming far more confident in independent messy play. I always use the hand under hand technique to introduce Tom to any messy play but recently once he has been introduced to the play materials he is happy to explore mainly independently, only occasionally wanting my support.

After we had finished painting with the egg we then decided to smash it up and have a big chocolate mess! The smell in the room was wonderful! Tom and I got very gloopy playing with the chocolate and we could feel it melting in our hands.

This was a really fun and exciting activity. If you are thinking of ideas to do over easter and maybe the children you look after aren't able to eat Easter eggs, try this sensory activity out. This way they still get to enjoy all the wonderful smells and textures without needing to taste.