Egg-cellent Easter activities for toddlers and preschoolers

The Easter long weekend is a great chance to play, create and cook up a storm with your little one. To get cracking, here are five fun things to do at home.

1. Play some Easter games

Games are both entertaining and educational. They help to develop children's thinking and moving skills; they can be played individually or as a group; and there are lots of Easter-themed activities to choose from. Here are a few ideas:

• A Scavenger Hunt that leads children to their basket on Easter morning
• Easter Bingo
• Easter I Spy Game where children find objects in a busy print-out
• Easter Basket Egg Toss, where the whole family takes turns trying to throw a plastic egg, or jellybean, into a basket
• Easter Eggs-ercises, which involves filling plastic eggs with different physical challenges for children, e.g. 'Do 7 Bunny Hops' or '2 Pencil Rolls'
• Easter Dice Game, where children roll a number and move that quantity of buttons onto an egg print-out

2. Get creative with playdough

Whether you make baby-safe, toddler-friendly, chocolate-scented or pastel-coloured playdough, this stuff is a recipe for fun.

Mix up a batch, then print off some Easter playdough mats. Depending on their age, your child can decorate the Easter hat, egg and rabbit templates with plain playdough - or squidge on googly eyes, beads and mini-straws too.

3. Prepare some healthier recipes

Easter doesn't have to be all about chocolate binges. Instead, you can serve cute Cheese and Cracker Chicks, decorate Easter Egg Fruit Tarts, snack on Easter Raisin Boxes and bake Carrot Muffins with no added sugar.

4. Snuggle up with a book

There are lots of humorous and heart-warming tales about Easter, so after all that physical activity, why not find yourselves a nook and read a book?

Five favourites are:

• The Story of the Easter Bunny by Katherine Tegen
• The Biggest Easter Basket Ever by Steven Kroll
• The Easter Bunny's Assistant by Jan Thomas
• How to Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace
• Pinkalicious: Eggstraordinary Easter by Victoria Kann

5. Experiment with art

The Easter break is a good time to roll out the butcher's paper and encourage your child to paint in egg-citing new ways. They could use:

• A fork to paint an Easter egg
• Their fingerprints to paint a bunny
• A potato stamp to create Easter eggs
• A sponge to paint an Easter basket
• Their footprint to make a carrot
• Watercolours and crayons to paint an Easter egg

And whatever your family gets up to, we wish you a happy and safe Easter. Enjoy!