5 Easy Activities For Your Toddler Using Things From An Easter Craft Tub

With Easter just around the corner, it means that the Easter Crafts are out in numbers. I'm sure that you have all seen the Easter Craft tubs that are out, you can usually find them at Kmart and Big W plus a few other places that I'm not thinking of as I write this. What is so great about them is that you can do a lot more than just do arts and crafts with the items that are inside.

The one we've got (Hunter Leisure Easter Mega Activity Craft Tub) was bought at Big W for $10 and while some of the things in there need to be put away until a toddler gets a little bit bigger, most of it is perfect for easy activities. There are a few extra things that you are going to need in order to do these activities but most of them are things that you can find around the house.

1. Whisk Retrieval 

Materials:

• Bowl
• Whisk
• Pom-poms

This may look a little strange but this activity is great for problem-solving (working out how to get the pom-poms out of the whisk) and fine motor skills (using a pincer grip to remove them). Using the pom-poms from the tub, fill the middle of the whisk until it is full. You then give it to the toddler and get them to pull the pom-poms out. When I do this activity, I like to pretend that the pom-poms have gotten stuck and we need to rescue them!

2. Egg Decorating

Materials

• Styrofoam 
• Stickers
• Glue

There are some days where dragging out the paints to decorate something is hard. This is where having stickers come in handy. This activity is great for that pincer grip once again if your toddler is getting the stickers off the paper themselves or their social skills when you talk about the stickers being used and where they're going to go. Placement of the stickers are up to the toddler and you don't need to worry about neatness. Once all the stickers have been placed, coat the egg in glue so that the stickers stay on. The egg can then be used for general play, decoration around the house or for the next activity listed.

3. Egg Balancing

Materials

• Styrofoam eggs
• Spoon
• Masking Tape

Everyone knows how an egg or spoon race works and that is basically how this activity works - minus the racing. With this activity for focusing more on them learning how to balance something as they walk and helps to develop their concentration skills and their gross motor skills. Once they have got the hang of balancing the egg and walking, you can add in masking tape trails that they then have to follow. It may be a bit tricky but what is great about the styrofoam eggs is that they hold pretty well to the spoons, so it then becomes a matter of them learning how to manage two things at once. For some toddlers, you may have to wait until they're a bit older for this one but it is a lot of fun.

4. Colour Sorting

Materials

• Pom-poms
• Different coloured bowls

One of my charges at the moment is getting really good at identifying colours. Even if your toddler is still learning colours, this is a fun way to do it. Using the pom-poms, your toddler is going to sort the colours into the matching bowl. Fine motor skills are being used in the grabbing of the pom-poms.

5. Pasta Threading

Materials

• Hollow large pasta
• Playdough
• Pipe cleaners

This is another activity for those fine motor movements but it also incorporates problem-solving as your toddler learns how to thread the pasta onto the pipe cleaner. Pipe cleaners are a little harder to thread than skewers but they also add a sensory element to the activity. Using the play dough to hold the pipe cleaner, have your toddler thread the pasta. If your pipe cleaner is too bendy, you can make it shorter and you can have more than one threading station. When you're done with the pasta, put it aside so it can be used for other activities.

And there you have it, five very simple activities with things you can find in an Easter craft tub. If you're interested in any of the items you can see in the photos, I have provided links. At the time of writing this, I discovered that stocks on this particular tub are limited. You can go to Big W's website and check stocks there.

If you can't get this particular one, Kmart do have similar tubs all year round only they don't have the eggs like this particular one has. If they don't then you can buy a lot of the separate items there for a couple of dollars each.

What is your favourite thing to make at Easter time?