Egg to Carton Transfer

Sweet Pea is 25 months.

From: I think this was just an idea I had at Easter when I saw this pair of cute little egg dipper tongs at Micheals.   It turns out that Sweet Pea couldn’t use the dippers at all yet.  However, she had such a great time transferring plastic eggs into the egg carton, I thought I would post about it.

Materials:

• Empty egg carton with the top cover removed.
• Plastic Easter eggs.
• Tub or basket to hold the eggs.
• Egg dipper tongs (Not recommended).

Procedure: This procedure involves what I would do (ie w/o the tongs) if I did it over again.

• Put the eggs in the basket.
• Present the egg carton, basket of eggs to your tot.
• Demonstrate moving one egg from the basket to the egg carton.
• Discuss how one egg fits in each hole in the carton.
• Let them have at it.

Observations: Sweet Pea tried valiently to use the tongs, but alas, it was not to be.  I continue to be astounded by my complete lack of ability to predict what is too hard or easy for her.  Frankly, they were a little hard for me to manage.  To be fair, I couldn’t tell that until after I got them home and tried to use them though.

She actually tried to use the tongs for a really long time, and amazingly didn’t break down in tears because she couldn’t do it.  She eventually just gave up on the tongs and started moving the eggs by hand.  This activity without the tongs was really fun for her and I would recomend it for other tots.   I thought it might be too easy for her, but she seemed to really enjoy it.  We talked about the colors of the eggs a little bit and tried counting them as she moved them, but mostly she just liked how they fit into the egg carton.

I might try the tongs again in a year.   Sweet Pea was still very interested in what might be in the eggs.  I think I might try to think up an activity (w/o breadcrumbs) that lets her try to open them and discover something inside.

Notes from the Trenches: Well…  don’t try to make a just-turned-2-year-old try to use plastic egg tongs that are way beyond their ability.  However, there wasn’t really anything tricky about the activity once we got rid of the tongs.

Rating (w/o tongs): 3 Stars * (Fun, Easy, Independent)