It’s April and Easter is just around the corner! Easter is filled with family, friends, food and traditions. What do all these things have in common? Socialization! Easter and the weeks leading up to Easter provide us with wonderful natural language and social learning opportunities.

Let’s start preparing now for Easter! The more you prepare now, the more your child will participate the day of. The more your child participates and interact with others on Easter, the more positive memories they will have as well as the more positive relationships they will build.

Here are a few simple ideas to start next week:
BOOKS

Start reading Easter related books with your child.

Preschoolers: Some preschoolers may not be ready for a true story book....it may be difficult for them to sit and/or attend. So when you are reading the books, focus on describing the pictures in the book rather than reading the story word for word. If your child is ready for the story, then make it very simple. Focus on using 1 to 3 words when reading/talking about the book. The goal is to familiarize your child with Easter-related vocabulary such as: bunny, eggs, basket, find, family members, etc. Here are a few fun books to read for preschoolers:

“Easter Egg Hunt” by Chuck Murphy
“Happy Easter, Mouse!” by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond
“Maisy’s Easter Egg Hunt” by Lucy Cousins
“Happy Easter Maisy!” by Lucy Cousins
“Maisy’s Easter Paint Book” by Lucy Cousins
“Spot’s First Easter” by Eric Hill
“Spot’s Easter Surprise” by Eric Hill
“Happy Easter, Corduroy” by Don Freeman and Lisa McCue
“Easter Bugs” by David A. Carter
“Biscuit’s Pet and Play Easter” by Alyssa Satin Capucilli

Kindergarten through second grade: For these kids you want to look for books that describe the sequencing of events on actual Easter day and/or when preparing for Easter (decorating Easter eggs, going on an Easter egg hunt, having an Easter party, anticipating Easter, etc.). Here are a few good books to read:

“The Night Before Easter” by Natasha Wing
“Easter Mice!” by Bethany Roberts
“Little Bunny’s Easter Surprise” by Jeanne Modesitt
“The Biggest Easter Basket Ever” by Steven Kroll
“Max’s Easter Surprise” by Rosemary Wells
“Franklin’s Easter” by Sasha McIntyre and Alice Sinker
“The Berenstain Bears and the Real Easter Eggs” by Stan and Jan Berenstain
“Corduroy’s Easter: A Lift-The-Flap Book” by B.G. Hennessy, Lisa McCue and Don Freeman
“Happy Easter, Little Critter” by Mercer Mayer
“The Best Easter Eggs Ever!” by Jerry Smath

Third grade and up: With this group of children you may want to focus on finding chapter books or longer books about Easter. A good idea is to read a chapter a night and then have them do an activity related to the chapter like: drawing a picture, writing a summary, creating their own story, creating their own chapter to what they think will happen next, etc. Here are a couple good books to read:

“Calendar Mysteries #4: April Adventure” by Ron Roy
“SpongeBob’s Easter Parade” by Steven Banks
“Where’s the Easter Bunny” (Splat the Cat Series) by Rob Scotton
“Happy Easter, Curious George” by H.A. Rey, Margret Rey and R.P. Anderson
“Easter Egg Haunt” by Mike Thaler
“Ogres Don’t Hunt Easter Eggs” (Adventures of the Bailey School Kids: Special Series) by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones

ACTIVITIES

Preschoolers: A great way to increase your child’s understanding about Easter is through art. You can find tons of free printable pages at the following websites:

http://www.dltk-holidays.com/easter/index.html
http://www.coloring.ws/easter.htm
http://www.coloringpages.net/easter.html

Print off coloring pages and spend the week coloring, painting and more. When you are done with your artwork, your child can make a book about Easter or you can tape their art around the house. This will create more social language opportunities for when you walk through the hallway or when you look through your child’s book of art: “Eggs!” “Look a Bunny!”, etc.

Kindergarten through second grade: Easter-related worksheets! You can find a variety of crossword puzzles, math worksheets, mazes, word searches, word scrambles and much more at:

http://www.dltk-holidays.com/easter/games.html

These worksheets are a fun way to work on academics and celebrate Easter at the same time. Aim for one fun Easter worksheet a day.

Third grade and up: In addition to worksheets, the following website has some fun interactive games (word searches, crosswords puzzles) and ideas for Easter-related writing activities and reading comprehension activities that your child can do alone or with a family member or friend. They are broken down by difficulty level:

http://www.theholidayzone.com/easter/interactive.html
http://www.theholidayzone.com/easter/eread.html

Start preparing your child for Easter now and they will get the most successful and positive experience on April 24 and during all the fun events leading up to the big day.a Have fun!

KidSpeak, LLC
www.kidspeakdallas.com