Name Egg Hunt

We love name activities! This activity is a fun way to help your child practice spelling his name or practice learning the letters in his name. It also teaches matching and recognition skills.

Materials Needed: crayons, colored pencils, colorful paper (we used thick scrapbook paper), scissors, egg pattern, tape, 3x5 blank note cards, laminating roll (or contact paper), and a Sharpie.

RELATED: Need more awesome Toddler Easter activities? Check out THE BEST Easter activities for toddlers HERE. 

Directions:

1. Have your toddler decorate the pieces of cardstock while you do some prep work (or you can do the prep work ahead of time).

2. Make an egg pattern (I got mine here, printed it out, and cut it out).

3. Use the egg pattern to draw eggs on different colored cardstock with a Sharpie. I used 7 different papers for the 7 different letters in my son's name.

4. Cut the eggs out.

5. Cut each 3x5 note card in half.

6. Write your child's name by putting one letter on each small card.

7. Tape the letter cards onto the cut out eggs.

8. Cover both sides of the eggs with laminating paper and cut them out again.

9. Tape two large scrapbook paper pages together.

10. Use your egg pattern to draw eggs onto the large paper. I drew 7 eggs for the 7 letters in my son's name.

11. Write your child's name on the eggs, putting one letter on each egg.

Now that the materials are ready, you're set to play the game!!

- Have your toddler cover his eyes while you hide the letter eggs.

- Once they are hidden, send your child off to find the eggs!

- When your child finds an egg, ask them what letter they found. Also ask them what sound the letter makes. If they don't know this information yet, still give them some wait time after you ask each question to see if they have an idea. If they don't know or guess wrong, just repeat the correct answer and sound.

- Send them over to your egg mat to match the egg with the same letter on the egg mat.

- Make sure to tell them what they spelled when they are all done! After they've played this game over and over again they may be able to answer you when you ask, "What does it spell?"

For older kids you could have them look for the letters in order. For example, if the child's name is Andrew, have him look for an "A" first. Once he finds that, have him look for an "N"... and on and on.

Another adaption for this activity is to use the entire alphabet, shapes, or numbers.

Language Building Activities:

- Talk about the colors, shapes, and pictures that are on the different papers you are using during this project. I tried to use a variety of paper with different designs/pictures to foster an interesting conversation.

- Use the words same and different to talk about the shapes that you see. You can also talk about the word similar. For example, say, "Both of these eggs are the same because they have polka dots," or "both of these eggs have the same colors- blue, pink, and yellow." "These eggs are different. One has guitars and one has dog bones."
- While we worked on this project we also sang the Alphabet song. You could also sing other name songs, like BINGO, but substitute your child's name. You can find some other name songs here to use as you practice teaching your child his own name (if he doesn't know it yet).

If you like this activity you might like this Easy Easter Name Game too.