5 Ways to Reuse Plastic Eggs with Kids

Spring is here, and we're thrilled to share some of our favorite Spring activities for children that enhance their speech and language skills at home. The great news is that all these simple spring speech activities can be done with just a $1 pack of plastic Easter eggs - which are readily available in the month of April! If you don't celebrate Easter, these surprise eggs are still great to use with children for teaching a variety of speech and language concepts that are featured below. These games have been tried and tested by our team of Los Angeles pediatric Speech Language Pathologists, who conduct play-based speech therapy sessions for children of various ages and abilities.

Colorful, 'crackable' plastic eggs help maintain the interest and enjoyment of kids of all ages and communication abilities during speech therapy sessions and while playing together with family members at home! Here are five ways we love reusing plastic Easter eggs to support a variety of different language concepts and articulation goals with children:

1. Around the House Scavenger Hunt – “Where is the egg?”

   For families who celebrate Easter and plan on having an Easter egg hunt with your kids, try planning multiple 'around the house' or 'yard' scavenger hunts in advance of the 'big day.' This way, your children can be prepared and know what to anticipate on Easter. This approach is particularly beneficial for neurodiverse children who might feel overwhelmed and overstimulated during a group Easter egg hunt with other kids or in an unfamiliar environment.

   

   
   

   Younger children: Scavenger hunts not only offer excellent chances to label common household items and room names, but they are also fantastic for teaching basic prepositions and locational terms like 'next to, under, on top, inside'. For simple clues, you can give your child a choice between two locations to see if they can identify the correct prepositional phrase, such as “Is the egg ON TOP or UNDER the chair?” When they find an egg, ask “Where did you find it?” and demonstrate using prepositional phrases to describe its location, like “You found the egg ON the table!”

    

   Older children: Take turns hiding eggs using a single prepositional term (e.g., only hide the eggs 'under' objects) with your child, and focus on more advanced locational terms (e.g., beside, in between, to the left/right of). Provide scavenger hunt clues that describe the function of the object where the eggs are hidden (e.g., "An egg is hiding inside a kitchen appliance that’s used to keep food cold"—refrigerator). Encourage older siblings to create their own egg scavenger hunt clues, which they can say or write down, for their younger siblings or family members to find.

   

   
   

2. Bathtime Sink or Float Challenge! Plastic eggs are an excellent tool for teaching children of all ages the concepts of 'sink' and 'float,' while also helping them practice those challenging 'l-blend' sounds. Additionally, they are a beloved bath time toy in our homes and offer a wonderful opportunity to engage face-to-face with your children when demonstrating speech sounds and words.

   
   

   

   
   

   Younger children: Enjoy pressing a plastic egg to the bottom of the bathtub while saying, "siiiink," and then watching it "pop" back to the surface when you let go, exclaiming, "float!"This is also a great bathtime activity for teaching and reinforcing basic prepositions like,  ‘under’, ‘on top’ and ‘inside.’ Model the beginning signs and words for, ‘open’ and ‘help’ when they want help opening an egg with a hidden toy inside. Hide small animal toys inside so you can practice saying the animal names and sounds ('moo, baa, neigh') when your child opens the egg.

   
   

   

   Older children: For older children, particularly those practicing their L sounds and l-blends (such as ‘blue’ and ‘float’), place small Legos inside the eggs. Let your child crack the eggs open and describe what they find (e.g., “Look, I found a blue Lego!”). For an engaging language learning activity, try a ‘sink or float’ game. First, have your child predict which items placed in an egg might cause it to sink or float. Then, let them test their predictions in the bathtub and compare how ‘heavier’ and ‘lighter’ objects (like coins, marbles, and cotton balls) affect the buoyancy of the plastic egg.

   
   

3. Speech Sound Scavenger Hunts – We love to fill our plastic eggs with small toys or small pictures that have a child’s targeted speech sound inside. You can find free downloadable articulation photo cards from Mommy Speech Therapy for this activity.

   
   

   Younger Children: For beginning speakers and children who are still learning to mimic and use early developing sounds and single words, consider filling the eggs with small cars and animal toys. This allows you to demonstrate sounds using simple syllables or single words when you open them (e.g., beep beep, moo, baa, neigh).

   
   

   

   
   

Older children: Take turns hiding and finding eggs while incorporating the words

your child is practicing for extra speech practice throughout the week!

Have your child write a list of words that include their targeted speech sound, or

ask your child’s speech therapist for a list of suggested words to practice at home.

Fold the paper and place them inside the eggs for your child to find. If your child

can easily say the speech sound correctly in a single word (e.g., “Lion”),

encourage them to practice using the word in a phrase (e.g., “a big lion”) or a

simple sentence (e.g., “Look, I found a lion”).

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4. Egg Category Sort & “What’s Inside the “Egg?” Game – Teaching children to compare, contrast, and learn different category names is a skill applicable to all age groups. Starting with basic and functional categories like food, animals, and vehicles, and progressing to more complex and abstract categories such as instruments, weather, and emotions, mastering category naming is essential for children throughout their school years.

   
   

   

   
   

   Younger children: We enjoy teaching primary colors using plastic eggs, as they are vibrant, colorful, and engaging for young children. You can place various colored pieces of paper on the floor and have your child 'find' an egg to match it with the 'same' colored paper, assisting them in sorting by color. This activity also introduces the language concepts of 'same' and 'different.' Additionally, you can hide different colored objects, like Legos, inside the eggs. After your child discovers a Lego, they can match it with the 'same colored' Lego to build a tower of the corresponding color (e.g., blue Legos, yellow Legos). This exercise also allows you to model and teach common adjectives and superlatives such as 'tallest, shortest,' and 'biggest/smallest' while comparing the various sized Lego towers.

    

   

   Older children: Fill plastic eggs with different colored objects/toys (or pictures representing objects from various categories) and help your child sort the objects by its category name or salient attribute (e.g. object color, shape, function, appearance). For older children focusing on descriptive language and extending sentence length, take turns concealing an object inside the egg and then describe it using various attributes (such as category, function, shape, location, color) to see who can guess, "What’s inside the egg?" This is a more advanced language activity we enjoy using with older elementary-aged children who are learning to create longer and more complex sentences with descriptive vocabulary.

   
   

   

   
   

5. Snack Time Food Sort:  What child doesn’t love mixing play time with food? We enjoy including snacks in our speech therapy sessions because mealtimes are natural opportunities for communication. Families can use snack and mealtimes at home to strengthen various language skills. Convenient (and less messy) snack options for this activity are cereal, baby carrots, grapes, blueberries, and small crackers like goldfish.

   
   

   

   
   

   Younger children: Place your child's favorite snacks inside the eggs and have them open each one to identify the food item inside. You can also practice modeling simple requests like ‘more’, ‘help’, and ‘open’ during this enjoyable and engaging snack time activity.

   
   

   

   Older children: Help your child to categorize the snacks into various food groups, such as cereal, fruit, vegetables, and snack items. You can also ask them to 'guess what’s inside' by listening to the sound the snack makes when shaken. To enhance their language skills, assist your child in describinng the various tastes and textures of the snacks they are eating, such as 'crunchy, salty, squishy, and wet.'

   
   

   ABOUT US:

   
   

   At Sunny Spot Speech, our bilingual team of Los Angeles Speech Language Pathologists and SLPAs utilizes a play-based speech therapy approach because children learn speech and language concepts most effectively through play and hands-on experiences. Sunny Spot Speech provides private speech therapy services and evaluations for kids in home, online, at your child's preschool, daycare, private school, or at another community location throughout Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. We are accepting new pediatric speech therapy clients in the following Los Angeles locations: Northridge, Granada Hills, Encino, Tarzana, Woodland Hills, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Van Nuys, San Fernando, Valley Village, Burbank, Calabasas.

   
   

   Contact us for a free phone consultation if you’re concerned about your child’s speech, language or communication abilities: Phone: 818-350-3107 or Email: info@sunnyspotspeech.com.