This year, Easter is Sunday, April 16.
His first Easter, four-month old Julian slept through the whole thing, but once he got his first taste of modern American celebrations of this holiday the following year as a determined toddler, he never looked back. Since he is not actually Christian, his experience of Easter was limited to the hunting of plastic and hard-boiled eggs. And hunt he did.
The egg hunting was so much fun, I realized we should be doing this in the backyard whenever boredom strikes. The more the merrier, so this might be something to suggest when your relatives are visiting. A little fresh air is good for everyone.
So the activity of the day is to conduct an age-appropriate treasure hunt for pre-verbal toddlers.
Materials needed:
- three or four of the same object, such as golf balls, tennis balls, or plastic eggs. (We use lemons from our backyard tree).
- small gift bag
How to do it:
- Place objects in a grassy area in plain view.
- Hold a small gift bag on behalf of your little scavenger.
- Announce the hunt: “Let’s go find some golf balls!”
- Model the desired behavior: “I found a ball – now I’ll put it in the bag!”
- Help child “find” another object and place it in the bag.
- When child is not watching, take “found” object and toss it from the bag back onto the grass for more finding fun.
- Practice this exercise periodically so that when Easter rolls around next year, your toddler will be kicking butt and taking names.
Related: Plastic Easter eggs can be played with before and after Easter
this is a great activity- our baby just started walking on his own and i credit the easter egg hunt in getting him to walk! this will make great use of our tiny little front yeard and his new skills
And if you have an older child at the same time, you have to carefully explain beforehand that the easy stuff is for the younger sibling.
I have a 5-year-old and we have “practiced” egg hunting every year since he was able. We have found that egg hunting is just way too fun to only do it once (on Easter morning). So we hide and find empty eggs for a couple weeks beforehand (he even wants to hide the eggs for Mom and Dad to find), and then on Easter morning we all feel like pro’s. Plus there are finally treats inside the eggs! So fun! This year he’ll get to help his 1-year-old brother find some eggs.
What a good idea! I should probably start training my one year old for the Easter party she will be attending in a couple of weeks. After several training sessions, she is sure to make mama proud!
I don’t remember my son’s first Easter, but for the second one (when he was just short of 2) we had an egg hunt with friends. Probably should have practiced the egg hunting first as all my kid wanted to do was pick up the eggs and throw them like balls!
Great post! I actually had this same idea but around the house when the weather prohibits us from going outside. My little girl is 16 months old this week!
Anyway, I’m hoping to send some sunshine your way by nominating you for The Sunshine Award! Your blog has been inspiring and encouraging to me. Thanks for sharing your story! Just click on this link to see what you need to do, if you choose to accept this award: http://wp.me/p2QS1L-au. Hope you have a sunshiney day! 🙂