Since we are in the season of Spring, there is an egg hunt activity that you can do with your child.
You will need plastic eggs, pen and paper. On a piece of paper, you will write different exercises and put a piece of paper with one exercise in each egg. You will then hide the eggs (you can do this indoors or outdoors or both). If you don’t have plastic eggs, don’t feel that you need to go buy them. You could use any object in the house - legos, blocks, little cars, or little plastic figures. You can still write an exercise on a piece of paper and just tape it to the object. If you do use eggs, I always encourage the children to open and close the eggs (works on fine motor skills).
Suggestions for exercises - anything that I have sent home in the packets or on this website. You can even ask your child what exercises they want to include for the activity. They might remember something that we have done together in therapy.
Animal walks - listed on other page in this website- frog jump, bear walk, crab walk, snake slither, duck walk, inchworm, seal slide, penguin walk, gallop
2. Stand on one leg to balance for as long as possible (do each leg) and you can have them do multiple trials.
3. Mountain climbers
4. Plank hand taps - get into plank position (aka push-up position) and tap the opposite hand. Extra challenge - tap the opposite shoulder. That’s too hard, just hold the position.
5. Jumping jacks
6. Wall sit - stand with back and head against the wall and heels approximately 1 ft from the wall. Slide down the wall to a position that is comfortable (knees and hips approximately 90 degrees). Make sure that your child has their knees bent. Hold for as long as possible keeping back and head against the wall.
7. Walk on tiptoes
8. Hop on one foot - as many times as they can, do each leg. You can hold their hands if they need help.
9. Skip
10. Superman/Super girl - lie on stomach and lift arms and legs up to fly
11. Bicycles - lie on back, move legs like you are riding a bike. Have them count to 20 or 30.
Another way to do an egg scavenger hunt activity is to start off with a clue. Place an egg next to each clue, and the child who figures out the clue can keep the egg for his/her own basket. The last clue can lead to a prize or they can earn a reward of their or your choosing.
This is if you have multiple children and want a way to have each child find their own eggs. Instead of having children hunt for any old egg, tell them they have to find certain ones that are specially designed for them. These eggs could be identified by having their initials written on them, their names on them, a particular color assigned to each child, or even stickers of something that are unique to the child.
Along with putting an exercise in each egg, you can include a puzzle piece and then they have to put the puzzle together at the end. If the puzzle piece doesn’t fit, the puzzle piece could be placed next to the egg. Then they can put the puzzle together at the end.
If they have trouble finding the eggs, you could add the element of hot/cold. They would have to understand that hot means they are really close, warm means they are close and cold means they are far away. If they are too young to understand that, then you can just say if they are close or far away.