Play Tray: Easter Rice

Adding Easter play idea's into your day is a great way of encouraging discussion with your children about the  reason's we celebrate Easter. Even if you are not particularly religious or do not celebrate Easter because of your own religion. The activity I have chosen is simply a nice activity with plenty of learning opportunities through play.

Resources:

Coloured Rice

plastic eggs

Easter chicks

Foam eggs shapes

Yellow feathers

Although this play is adult initiated I will be keeping this tray filled and placing the lid on so that my two can help them selves to the tray when ever they wish until after Easter. The fun of this is that Little man could use the tray how ever he likes to play. 

The first thing he did was to stick the feathers into the holes he had noticed in the eggs. He was very proud  of himself for making his own little trees and with each one he made he would give out a little giggle. 

 'Look mummy Trees'

To make sure they didn't  fall over he pushed the eggs down into the rice. 

I must admit I love the trees. 

Once the tree's were all made he moved onto filling the plastic eggs that were left with rice. Once filled he enjoyed listening to the sound of the rice being poured out of the eggs again and hitting the rice in the tray. I used this as an opportunity to drop in some words such as full, empty, pour, fill. 

I asked him what the rice was and he explained that it was grass for the chicks because it was soft. This gave him the idea to fill the eggs with just a little rice and to use it as a nest for the chicks. He walked the chicks around the tray putting on a high pitched voice. The chicks played nicely together and once tired returned back to their colourful nests. 

Learning opportunities:

• Mathematical language,
• Small world offering opportunities to build on imagination,
• Use of new language