Are you prepping for Easter holidays already? We are too! The team at The Playhouse love Easter time, but we know it’s important that it’s not all about the chocolate! Keeping kids’ minds and bodies active during the holidays is what The Playhouse is all about. Here are our top three sensory-based DIY Easter activities.

Easter Fruit Skewers

See, Easter can be healthy and fun too!

You will need:

  • Bamboo or metal skewers
  • A knife for chopping fruit. A child-friendly knife for appropriately aged children, or simply a job for a grown up.
  • A selection of fruit in season; apples, orange, grapes, strawberries, melon (your choice really!) Firmer fruits like the apple or melon will hold the cut-out shape better!
  • Easter cookie cutters (we picked ours up from Coles for $5).

How to:

  • Cut the fruit into portions for the skewer (adult assistance required)
  • Slice flat portions of apple or melon
  • Choose your Easter cutter shape
  • Press the cutter into the fruit to make your skewer topper
  • Kids can skewer fruit onto the skewer, either in a pattern or haphazard if you dare!
  • Place the Easter shape on top last!
  • Enjoy this quirky, hands-on, healthy morning or afternoon tea Easter activity.

Grow some carrots for the Easter Bunny

You will need:

  • A plastic tub
  • Enough soil to fill the plastic tub (note: don’t use any soil pre – mixed with fertilisers)
  • Some scoops and hand shovels (ones from the sandpit are fine!)
  • Small containers, buckets or pails
  • A bunch of Dutch carrots (you can use regular carrots, but the green tops look great!)
  • Parental supervision.

How to:

  • Probably best to try this one outside unless you love dirt in the house!
  • Have the kids fill the plastic tub with the soil and leave some room at the top
  • Take their time – scooping with hands, spades, buckets, in the dirt. Encourage them to get their hands dirty and enjoy the feeling of the dirt on their hands.
  • Use fingers or spoons to make holes in the dirt to plant your carrots
  • Place carrots in the holes
  • Keep playing in the dirt!

Consider doing this one on Easter Saturday morning. Brave grown-ups can even water the carrots to ‘make them grow’. You can pick the carrots just before bed to leave out for the Easter Bunny.

DIY no-chocolate texture eggs

Easter is a time of colour and fun, and not all kids Easter activities have to end in chocolate covered hands. How about some glue, glitter and colour covered hands instead? These eggs are a fun way to brighten up an afternoon – you might find they last a bit longer than chocolate eggs in your house too!

You will need:

  • Some foam or plastic eggs (we picked ours up from Lincraft and the local discount store before Easter time!)
  • An array of colourful, bedazzling, fuzzy, tactile and textural items. We selected feathers, buttons, pom poms, tinsel and plastic jewels
  • A hot glue gun (parental assistance required), or glue, double sided tape or even sticky dots.

How to:

  • Go crazy with the glue or tape on the egg and simply let the kids decorate the eggs as they wish! It is a great sensory and tactile experience for them.
  • Only warning is to assist kids with the hot glue gun and any scissors if needed.
  • The eggs look bright, colourful and fun and can even be given to adoring grandparents as gifts. But first, take a pic of these masterpieces and tag us at #mingaraclub.

Oh dear, we’ve run out of craft

Ok, so you have now won the Pinterest parent of the year award. Are you looking for more great Easter experiences for you and your kids? Why not head into The Playhouse where the kids can burn off some energy. While that’s happening, you can celebrate being such an amazing grown-up with some coffee made with love. And maybe even some house-made bakery treats – all at The Roasted Berry. Go on – you know you deserve it!