To keep therapy momentum going during the holiday, we’re excited to offer creative Easter activities in this blog. Our aim is to help parents and caregivers incorporate speech and occupational therapy goals into Easter celebrations. These activities cater to different ages and therapy needs, making sure the Easter break is both enjoyable and beneficial for your child’s development.
Craft – Making an Easter Basket
Simply print our BillyLids Bunny Basket template, cut, fold and paste. Depending on your child’s age and developmental needs, you can colour the basket or decorate with ribbon and stickers.
To make a easter bunny basket at home you will need:
- Printable easter basket
- Scissors, glue stick.
- Decorations (as many or as little as you please): paint, pencils, crayons, pom-poms, paper, ribbon, string, stickers, easter grass/shredded colour paper/ confetti.
Speech Pathology Goals:
- Listening and following instructions: As children follow steps to create their basket, they practise their sequencing skills, planning and organising their basket creation. You can give your child written or verbal instructions tailored to their needs. To follow instructions, children need to comprehend temporal concepts such as ‘first’, ‘next’, and ‘then’. Children also need to understand spatial concepts such as ‘first’ and ‘on’.
- Receptive and expressive vocabulary: Craft offers a diverse range of vocabulary to be learnt, through discussions about colours, shapes, and sizes. Caregivers can model simple language and actions for early learners, such as, “I am cutting”. Children practise descriptive language skills while discussing their decorations and basket design with others.
- Requesting and choice-making: To make a bunny basket, children need to make preferences and express their opinions. Decision-making can include the type of decorations children want inside their basket (ribbon, paint, string, pom-poms) to specific colours, shapes and sizes. Children will also need to request tools, such as scissors, glue, or seek help.
Occupational Therapy Goals:
- Visual Perception: Arranging items in the basket requires visual discrimination and organisation. Children make decisions about placement, ensuring that items fit harmoniously. This enhances visual perception skills, important for academic tasks and daily activities.
- Sequencing Skills: Organising the elements of an Easter basket involves sequencing—arranging items in a specific order. Developing sequencing skills is crucial for tasks that require step-by-step execution, fostering cognitive abilities and problem-solving skills.
- Executive Functioning: Planning and organising the components of the Easter basket contribute to the development of executive functioning skills. Children engage in decision-making, time management, and task initiation, building skills necessary for academic success.
- Social Interaction: Making Easter baskets can be a collaborative activity, providing opportunities for social interaction. Children can work together, share ideas, and cooperate, fostering communication and teamwork.
Cooking – BillyLids Bunnies
Making Easter bunny treats with kids isn’t just a fun holiday activity—it’s a way to boost important speech, language, and occupational therapy skills. Follow the recipe below to create your own BillyLids Easter Bunnies this Easter!
Ingredients:
Batter:
- 450g packet vanilla cupcake mix (or make from scratch – search for a simple vanilla cupcake recipe)
- 60g butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cup (160ml) milk
- 1 cup (80g) desiccated coconut
- 20 white marshmallows
- 10 pink mini marshmallows
- Pink and white heart-shaped sprinkles, to decorate
- Coloured Mini M&Ms
- Black writing icing or
Buttercream:
- 125g butter, softened
- 3 cups (480 g) icing sugar mixture
- 1 tsp milk
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 180C. Line 12 holes of a 1/3-cup (80ml) muffin pan with paper cases. Make cupcakes using the cupcake mix, butter, eggs and milk following packet directions (reserve icing sachet for another use). Cool completely.
Step 2
To make the buttercream, use an electric mixer to beat the butter in a bowl until very pale. Gradually add the icing sugar, in batches, beating well after each addition. Add the milk and vanilla and beat until combined.
Step 3
Place the coconut in a small bowl. Reserve 1 tablespoon buttercream. Spread the remaining buttercream over each cupcake. Dip the top of each cupcake in the coconut to lightly coat. Cut the white marshmallows in half. Arrange 2 marshmallow halves, cut-side down, on half the cupcakes to make feet. Use a little of the reserved buttercream to attach pink heart sprinkles to feet to make paw pads. Spread 6 marshmallow halves with reserved buttercream and dip in coconut to make a tail. Arrange on the cupcakes above the feet.
Step 4
Cut pink mini marshmallows in half. Place on the cut sides of the remaining white marshmallows to make ears. Place on the remaining cupcakes. Decorate with the red coloured mini m&ms for noses and heart sprinkles for teeth. Decorate with the writing icing for eyes and whiskers.
Speech Pathology Goals:
- Expand Vocabulary: Through Easter baking, children can expand their vocabulary by actively engaging with cooking-based terms like “stir”, “whisk”, and “flour”.
- Descriptive Language: Discussing the textures, colours, smells and flavours of Easter treats and decorations encourages children to express their ideas, fostering descriptive language skills and creativity.
- Following Instructions and sequencing: Following Easter baking recipes requires careful listening and comprehension as children ensure they sequence each step correctly, strengthening their ability to understand and follow instructions. Children strengthen their comprehension of temporal concepts such as ‘first’, ‘next’, ‘then’, ‘after’.
- Reading Comprehension: Older children who read written recipes develop their reading comprehension skills by understanding ingredient lists, measurements, and procedural steps, applying literacy skills in a practical context.
- Social communication skills: the collaborative nature of baking encourages communication (turn-taking, sharing and waiting), building teamwork and effective interpersonal skills.
Occupational Therapy Goals:
- Fine Motor Skills: Baking activities strengthen fine motor skills, including hand-eye coordination, finger dexterity, and grip strength, which are crucial for tasks like writing, drawing, and manipulating objects.
- Sensory Exploration: Baking engages multiple senses, including touch, sight, smell, and taste. Feeling textures and experiencing aromas contribute to sensory exploration and integration, benefiting children with sensory processing challenges.
- Sequencing and Planning: Following recipes and steps in baking involve sequencing and planning skills. Children can organise tasks, follow directions, and understand cause-and-effect relationships, fostering cognitive development.
- Creativity and Self-Expression: Decorating allows children to express creativity, individuality, and imagination. This boosts self-confidence and encourages self-expression.
If you’re short on time, you can make decorated Easter biscuits using milk arrowroot biscuits. They’re the perfect shape for Easter Eggs. Just spread icing and add chocolate chips, sprinkles, or lollies for personalised eggs. Decorating lets kids use their descriptive skills, fine motor skills, engage in sensory exploration and be creative.
Shared Book Reading
Shared book reading is also easily adaptable to your child’s reading level and age, from wordless picture books to stories with varying amounts of text. To foster a fun-filled engaging reading session, try reading with varying intonation, facial expressions and pause for effect often, allowing your child to express their thoughts or reactions.
- Infants and Toddlers: Engage your child’s attention with colourful illustrations and rhythmic language. Point to pictures, label objects, repeat words and short phrases or make animal noises! Introduce different types of words (nouns; ‘bunny’, adjectives; ‘soft’ and verbs; ‘hop’) to enhance vocabulary. Keep shared reading fun, child-led and even interactive by incorporating props related to the story, like an Easter egg or a toy bunny.
- Preschoolers and Early Primary School Learners: Dive deeper into the story by discussing characters, settings, and plots. Encourage comprehension through prediction and critical thinking with open-ended questions. Utilise techniques such as pausing for the child to finish sentences and incorporating role-playing to enhance language skills.
- Older Children: Explore more complex narrative themes and vocabulary, including characters’ emotions, motivations, and actions. Use wordless books as a creative tool for story creation, retelling, or developing alternative endings. Practice reading fluency and comprehension with Easter-themed books, followed by discussions to ensure understanding. Foster writing skills by encouraging children to write their own Easter stories, including designing illustrations and character development.
Occupational Therapy Goals:
- Cognitive Skills: Shared book reading promotes cognitive development by encouraging children to think, predict, and make connections between the story and their own experiences. It enhances their memory, attention, and problem-solving skills.
- Fine Motor Skills: Turning pages, pointing to pictures, and holding a book involve fine motor skills. These activities can help children develop hand-eye coordination, finger strength, and manipulation skills that are important for tasks such as writing and using utensils.
- Sensory Integration: Engaging with different textures and sensory experiences found in books (e.g., touch-and-feel books) can support sensory integration, helping children regulate their sensory responses and reactions to stimuli.
- Emotional Regulation: Books often explore various emotions and situations, providing a platform for discussing and understanding feelings. This can be beneficial for children who struggle with emotional regulation, helping them identify and express their emotions.
Barrier Game
A barrier game is an information gap activity, where players use listening and language/ communication skills to reach a common goal.
What’s Required:
- BillyLids pre-made activity scenes
- Easter picture card icons (chicks, bunnies, chocolate etc)
If you are a BillyLids Therapy family, please ask in-clinic for a printed and laminated version of the activity set.
Instructions:
- Sit opposite each other with a barrier (like a cereal box) in between so you can’t see each other’s stuff.
- Each player gets the same background and set of Easter picture cards.
- One player puts their cards on their background, giving directions to the other player.
- Remove the barrier and flip the backgrounds to see if they match.
- Swap places and repeat with different backgrounds.
For younger children, use the activity scenes and Easter cards to introduce words, tell stories, and discuss Easter vocabulary, encouraging descriptive language, questioning, and imaginative storytelling.
Speech Pathology Goals:
- Following directions and listening: Children listen to instructions and complete actions, understanding spatial elements such as “in,” “on,” “under,” “beside,” “left,” “right,” “top,” and “bottom.”
- Formulating sentences and giving directions: Children practise formulating clear and accurate instructions, reinforcing their understanding of descriptive and spatial language. For example, “Put the purple egg under the sandcastle”.
- Expanding vocabulary: The activity scenes feature familiar places (garden, park, beach and farm) and functional language for everyday use.
Occupational Therapy Goals:
- Fine Motor Skills: Some barrier games involve manipulating small objects or placing items in specific positions. These fine motor activities contribute to the development of hand-eye coordination, finger strength, and precision.
- Visual Perception: Children must rely on visual cues and descriptions to understand and replicate a scene. This enhances visual perceptual skills, which are crucial for tasks such as reading, writing, and interpreting visual information in the environment.
- Spatial Awareness: The barrier game challenges children to understand and convey spatial relationships between objects. Developing spatial awareness is essential for activities that require navigation, organisation, and coordination in physical space.
Activity Scenes:
Easter Picture Card Icons:
