Easter Circle Time Activity and Craft for Preschool

I just got home from a wonderful vacation, and as I was getting back into the preschool teaching zone, I decided I wanted to do a different circle time activity than I had planned. This is a simple and perfect last minute Easter circle time activity for classrooms that celebrate Easter, like my Christian church-run preschool class. The book can be almost any book about Easter Eggs, but my favorite is below.

Set Up for Easter Circle Time:

Gather your materials. You will need the Easter egg printables (print out as many as you need), a laminator, magnets if you want to do the activity on a magnet board, some scissors, and a basket. Print out at least two sheets of each page of the Easter egg patterns, cut out, laminate, and add magnets if you please.

Click on the image or the title to print the pdfs.

Easter Egg Patterns Page One

Easter Egg Patterns Page Two

Page Three Easter Egg Patterns

The Easter Circle Time Book:

The Best Easter Eggs Ever! By Jerry Smath is a cute story for circle time. The story follows the Easter bunny and his three young assistant bunnies as they prepare for their big day. The Easter Bunny is getting tired and a little bored of his polka dot design for the eggs. He decides to send out his assistants in search of new designs. The little bunnies head out with one egg and paints to all different places to find inspiration. When one of the little bunnies is captivated by the night sky, she doesn’t notice how dark it is and how lost she has gotten. The Easter Bunny and his other assistants find her, and in the morning the new designs are celebrated.

The Easter Circle Time Activity:

Place one the eggs of each pair around the room, or on the magnet board. Place the other egg of each pair in your basket.

If you are doing this on the magnet board, tell the children you need help to find the matching egg. You are looking for the eggs with the same shapes all over the egg. Pull one egg out and do it together. Next, pull one egg out and hand it to one child asking them to find it. Continue until each child has had a turn.

If you are doing this with a gross motor spin, place the eggs around the room but don’t hide them. Pull the egg out of the basket and hand it to a child. Ask them to find its match. For 2-3-year-olds I would place the eggs just away from the circle, so there is an element of moving but not a huge search that could stretch circle time too long. With older classes, I would hand each child an egg and allow them to go at the same time to find the eggs returning to circle when the match is found. You could also place the eggs in the middle of the circle and have them find the match. Continue until all the children have had a turn.

The Craft:

Egg Painting

This is a simple activity that works with a wide range of ages.

Gather your materials. You will need some paint, paper plates, paper, and plastic Easter eggs.

Crack open the eggs and use them to make circle prints! It’s a great way to keep working on shapes at the art table. The picture below is of 2.5 – 3.5 year olds exploring.