7 Easy Toddler Games to Play With Plastic Easter Eggs

Spring is here. All of the new flowers in bloom, baby animals, sunny days, snow… wait, what? Yes, it totally snowed on the first day of spring. It’s madness!

Hopefully the snow is behind us, and we can get on with the rest of spring with some beautiful mild days. With spring, comes Easter. It’s early this year, so we haven’t had too time to take full advantage of the most perfect baby and toddler toy… plastic Easter eggs.

Plastic Easter eggs really are amazing. They are cheap, they come in all different colors and sizes, and there are so many different ways to use them. They aren’t just for hunting!

I am sharing 6 easy toddler games to play with plastic Easter eggs. And when I say easy, I mean roll-out-of-bed, baby-was-up-all-night, too-tired-to-function easy.

7 Easy Toddler Games to Play With Plastic Easter Eggs

1. Memory is a simple game that you can pull together with a minimal amount of supplies. I like to use old egg cartons to make it a little easier. Then, add whatever small object you’d like to the eggs, making sure that there’s two of each object.

• What you’ll need:
  • 12 Plastic Eggs (using the same color will make the game more difficult)
  • 6 small objects, two of each kind, that’ll fit inside eggs
  • egg carton *optional
• What to do:
  • Place objects inside the eggs, and place the eggs in the carton. Take turns with your toddler opening eggs. Keep the eggs when you get a match. Play till all the eggs are gone.

2. What’s in the Easter Egg? is a take on my game from Christmas called What’s in the Stocking? It’s a fun game that helps to build vocabulary and inference skills in toddlers.

• What you’ll need:
  • A few plastic Easter eggs
  • Some small objects to fill the eggs.
• What to do:
  • Place objects in Easter eggs. Have your toddler ask questions, shake the eggs to try to guess what’s inside the eggs. Older kids can ask 20 questions in order to try and guess what’s inside. You can show younger toddlers what objects you are putting in the eggs first.

3. Easter Egg Workout: I recently shared this simple workout you can do with your kids. Fill Easter eggs with different types of movements or exercise written on small pieces of paper or use this printable. When they open up the egg, do the exercise that is inside the egg until you reach the next egg.

4. Musical Instruments: This is lots of fun for younger toddlers, but older toddlers will love it too, especially if they help make the musical instruments.

• What you’ll need:
  • plastic Easter eggs
  • materials to fill eggs that’ll make sound (e.g. rice, dry pasta, beans, rocks)
• What to do:
  • Fill the Easter eggs with chosen material, then use duct tape or hot glue gun to seal eggs shut. Your older toddler can help you fill the eggs before using them to shake along to some music.

5. Sorting and Making patterns: Toddlers love to sort things! You can sort plastic eggs by color or size, depending on your plastic eggs. You can also let your toddler make patterns with the eggs. I love using old egg cartons for this activity.

6. Find the right color: This is a great game for teaching color recognition. Simply scatter a bunch of plastic eggs into an open space, then yell a color and see if your toddler can gather up all the plastic eggs of that color. For younger toddlers, you can hold up a piece of paper with the color on it so they can match.

7. Sensory Bin: Sensory bins are so much fun for toddlers! I love how easy they are to put together. You can use whatever you have on hand. Here are some ideas.

• Plastic eggs make great scoopers in a bin full of dried pasta, beans, or rice.
• Use plastic eggs as molds or “cookie cutters” when playing with play dough.
• As the weather turns warmer, throw plastic eggs in with some water for a simple water play bin.

**BONUS: Let your toddler make up the game! W is at such a wonderful age for imaginative play. I love listening in to him playing. I left some plastic eggs in the living room the other day, and they suddenly became dinosaur eggs. There are certainly a lot of amazing activities for kids on pinterest these days, but I’m finding out that often the best games are the ones kids make up themselves. So, one of the simplest ways to use plastic Easter eggs with your toddler is to casually leave them out for your toddler to discover.