Here in EAP, we are dedicated to help parents utilize time and opportunity for kids to always learn and progress. In line with that intention, we launched the monthly thematic activities series, where we compiled activity ideas from the internet that you can carry out with your children at home. With the wildlife animals theme activities in the first half of March, followed by the rainbow theme activities, our kids here at EAP had such a fun learning experience and we hope you enjoyed all the activities too!

Coming up for the start of April, with Easter just around the corner, we have prepared a range of Easter-themed activities that you can carry out with your child at home! Kick start your week with a fun and classic Easter Egg Hunting for Music & Movement Monday, unleash your creativity making some cute Paper Plate Easter Bunnies on Crafty Tuesday, learn about density with Float or Sink Easter Egg Submarine on Wild Wednesday, make some awesome Chocolate Easter Eggs for Tasty Thursday and end your week with a fun-filled Easter Obstacle Course on your Funtastic Friday!

Music & Movement Monday

Vital to the development of motor skills as well as maintaining health and wellbeing, movement activities help to build attention and imitation skills. It is also a great opportunity for you to engage and have fun with your child!

Easter Egg Hunting – Let’s get active!

Materials:

• Plastic eggs
• Printed/Written instructions (click here for a printable template!)
• (Optional) Candies/Small gifts

Steps: 

1. Print/write down the instructions/actions on small pieces of paper.
2. Place the paper into the easter eggs. You may slot in some candies or small gifts for extra fun! 
3. Simply place the eggs around the house or garden and start hunting! 
4. When your child finds the easter egg, have them open it and do the actions together!

Crafty Tuesday

Arts and Crafts activities help to nurture your child’s creativity and fine motor skills! With these activities, your child could occupy their time meaningfully, and also feel successful and accomplished with a self-made craft piece!

Paper Plate Bunny

Materials:

• Paper plate
• Pom-pom ball
• Pipe cleaners
• Colour papers
• White construction paper 
• Paint
• Scissors
• White glue
• Googly eyes (you can also draw it on)
• Marker Pen

Steps:

1. Paint the back of the paper plate with the colour of your choice.
2. While waiting for the paint to dry, you can prepare the bunny ears. Cut out two bunny ears on white construction paper and paste it with two smaller coloured bunny ears (cut from coloured paper).
3. After the paint has dried, glue a pom pom in the middle of the plate as the nose of your bunny.
4. Glue three pipe cleaners on each side of the nose to create the bunny’s whiskers.
5. Glue two googly eyes on the paper plate. If you do not have googly eyes, use marker pens to draw two eyes.
6. Draw the bunny’s mouth using the marker pen.
7. Glue the bunny ears at the top of the paper plate and you are done!

Wild Wednesday

Water and sensory play has always been one of the favourite play activities for most of our kids here in EAP. Other than building and strengthening motor skills, water and sensory play also provides an opportunity for sensory exploration for your child.

Float or Sink Easter Egg Submarine

Materials:

• Plastic eggs
• Tape 
• Small items to put in eggs (e.g. marbles, candies, coins, pom pom balls, legos) 
• A small tub/ plastic container
• Water 
• Measuring scale

Steps:

1. Fill water into the small tub/ plastic container and set aside.
2. Seal/tape any holes on the plastic eggs.
3. Fill each plastic egg with different small items.
4. Make sure the plastic eggs are tightly sealed with tape to prevent water flowing into the eggs
5. Before putting the plastic eggs into the tub of water, use a scale to measure each eggs’ weight, record down the weight and make a prediction with your child to guess which egg will sink or float
6. Place the plastic eggs into the tub of water, record the result and explain to your kids about density, weight and the science behind sinking and floating. Examples:
   1. The plastic egg with the pom pom ball in it is floating, because the pom pom ball is light, there is more air inside the plastic egg, and it is less dense than the water, therefore it floats.
   2. Plastic egg with coins inside is sinking, because the coins are heavy and it is more dense than water, therefore it sank. 

Tasty Thursday

Other than sharpening attention and motor skills, preparing snacks can also empower your child with independent living skills. Participating in the making of meals may pique your child’s interest and develop a new hobby. For children with autism that have food tolerance issues, this is also a fun way to engage and encourage them to try new foods!

Chocolate Easter Egg

Materials:

• Dark/Milk chocolates
• Egg-shaped baking mold 
• A big heatproof bowl
• Spoon
• Pot and water (or microwave)
• Cooking thermometer
• (Optional) Small candies/gifts

Steps:

1. Cut your chocolates into small chunks. The finer the chocolates are, the easier and quicker they melt.
2. Place the chocolates into a heatproof bowl and melt them over a pot of simmering water, stirring occasionally. Alternatively, you can also melt the chocolates in a microwave, stirring it every 30 seconds to ensure even heat distribution. 
3. Once the chocolates are all melted, leave it to cool to 35ºC (measured using a cooking thermometer).
4. Pour the melted chocolates into the egg-shaped molds, tilt it around so it covers the whole surface of the mold. Tip any excess chocolates back into the bowl. 
5. Scrape the rim of the mold so that your chocolate egg would have a clean edge. 
6. Lay the mold flat-side-down for about 15 minutes or until it is completely set. 
7. Repeat the process until you have a ½ cm thick layer of chocolate. 
8. Repeat steps 4-7 with another egg-shaped mold.
9. Refrigerate both molds for another 10 minutes to ensure that the chocolates are completely set.
10. Remove the chocolate eggs from the molds, brush some melted chocolate on the rim of each chocolate egg halves and stick them together. You can also add small candies or gifts in the chocolate eggs before sealing them up!

Fancy a cookie? Here is another fun easter snack activity- Egg Puzzle Cookie that you can carry out with your child!

Funtastic Friday

Coming to the end of the week, why not take up a notch and go on for some adventures with your child? Here are some activities to make your Fridays extra “Fun”tastic, where you can go on virtual tours, treasure hunts or do fun and interesting science experiments with your child!

Easter Obstacle Course/Relay Races

Materials:

• Eggs (hard-boiled or plastic)
• Plastic spoons
• Inclined surface
• Empty plastic bottles
• Hula hoops (or you can cut rings out from cardboard)
• Action cards (get it here or make it yourself!)

Steps/Details: Set up an easter-themed obstacle course/relay race in your backyard/living room! With the materials above, or any materials you have at home, you can create a series of games as part of a relay race/obstacle course challenge that you can enjoy with your child! Some examples of easter-themed games are: pass the egg with the spoon, bunny hop (in the hula hoops/rings), egg rolling race (on an inclined or flat surface) and easter egg bowling (using eggs and empty plastic bottles)! For more easter game ideas, click here.

We hope you and your child have an amazing Easter with all the activities above! As diverse learning can be, we believe fun is a key element to keep kids engaged and enhance the learning experience. In like with that, you can learn more about adding fun into learning at our new Autism At Home module on Making Learning Fun!

With all the activity ideas above, we hope this helps you in planning productive daily activities with your child! Feel free to try out the activities, share your photo and tag us at @eapmalaysia, with #EAPMalaysia and #WelcomeToHope on Instagram or Facebook! Stay tuned and do check us out on Instagram for more kids activities and updates!

Easter is a time when Christians remember the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For those who celebrate Easter, some of us may have already been able to return to church for physical services, but for those who are not able to yet, you can still tune in to church services online. If you don’t have a regular church to go to or your church doesn’t have streaming available, feel free to check out Kingdomcity’s Easter services available from 2nd-4th April 2021.

From all of us at EAP, have a blessed Easter!

References

1. Easter Egg Hunting: https://www.aliceandlois.com/easter-egg-hunt-free-printable/
2. Paper Plate Bunny: https://www.thebestideasforkids.com/paper-plate-easter-bunny-craft/
3. Float or Sink Easter Egg Submarine: https://theresjustonemommy.com/plastic-egg-submarines/
4. Chocolate Easter Egg: https://www.jamieoliver.com/features/how-to-make-a-chocolate-egg/
5. Easter Obstacle Course/Relay Race: https://kidactivities.net/easter-games-songs/
6. Easter Bunny Obstacle Course Action Cards: https://wunder-mom.com/easter-bunny-obstacle-course/