I put together this sensory tray full of chicken eggs and Easter basket grass with the help of my preschoolers. Before we could even start setting up the tray though, the grass (which we were calling hay) needed a haircut! When you take the grass out of the bag, it seems like one long piece all wrapped up and is almost impossible to really separate. My preschoolers got busy snipping clumps of the grass with scissors into smaller sections. We ended up with grass everywhere, but were able to gather enough for our eggs to sit in for this activity!
Chicken Egg Tray Supplies:
- Easter basket grass, thin rope, yarn, hay
- miniature eggs
- pretend chickens
- kid-sized tweezers, tongs
- colored cups or bowls (same colors as the eggs)
Spread the grass across the bottom of the tray. Sprinkle the colored eggs over the grass. Add the chickens (or other fun props!). Kids can then use the tweezers to pick up the eggs and drop them into the correct color cup. The tricky part is to only pick up the eggs and not huge clumps of the grass!
As the eggs are being picked up and sorted, the kids can count. Finding the total number of eggs is a fun skill to work on. When all the eggs are cleared off the tray and the cups are full, count the eggs in each cup. Discuss more and less when talking about how many eggs are in each cup.
A fun idea would be to put the cups on a balancing scale and see which cup is the heaviest and the lightest. Discuss why the number of eggs effects the weight of the cup. What happens if eggs are taken out of one cup and added into the other? What happens if all the eggs are taken out of one of the cups? What happens when the same exact number of eggs are in both cups on the scale?
When all of the egg investigating is over, sprinkle the eggs back on to the tray to play again! Make it more difficult (and strengthen those fine motor muscles!) and bury some of the eggs deep in the grass.
Sensory play is so much fun! Find more sensory ideas on my Sensory & Play Dough Pinterest Board!
Thanks for this marvellous idea I will definitely give it a try on this Easter