SPECIAL NEEDS ACTIVITY -- SENSORY EGG HUNT
AN ALTERNATIVE TO RUNNING AND SEEKING WITH VISION

Program Tie-ins:
Sparks: Myself, the World Around Us
Brownies: Widening my View on People #4
Guides: Encountering My Horizons #2a when done as a participant
             Discovering My Community #2a when done as a helper

This activity requires several adult or older child helpers and advance preparation of materials.
In a quiet location near your regular meeting place, set up 3 stations. Each station needs to have a helper running it. While your regular meeting is taking place, perhaps involving Easter games or crafts, 3 girls at a time are removed and taken to the Sensory Egg Hunt. The 3 girls rotate between the 3 stations, then are taken back to the meeting, and another 3 girls can have a turn.

As preparation for entering the stations, you could have a dialogue with the girls such as this:
"What part of the body do you use when you LOOK for Easter eggs? Well, today you have to find the eggs using other parts of your body. What part of your body do you use to LISTEN? What part of the body do you use to SMELL? What part of the body do you TOUCH things with?"

Station One: Listening
Materials:
3 flat boxes (eg: soup or pop can flats)
Easter grass, glue
3 stuffed ducks, or other birds
Small portable cassette tape player, tape with bird songs (downloaded or create your own!) Large chocolate eggs (one for each girl)
Directions:
Glue Easter grass onto the bottoms of the boxes for nests.
Place the tape player and a chocolate egg together under one box.
Place the stuffed birds onto their nests.
Start the tape player playing the bird songs before the girl enters the station.
Each girl must listen to the nests to determine which hides the egg!

Station Two: Smelling
Materials:
3 flowerpots
3 bunches of artificial flowers (can purchase or make out of tissue paper)
Spray cologne (ALLERGY ALERT!) or other "smelly" solution such as vanilla extract
Chocolate bunnies (one for each girl)
Directions:
Overturn flowerpots, place a chocolate bunny under one of them.
Insert the artificial flowers into the holes in the bottom of the flowerpots
Spray only the flowers in the pot that is hiding the bunny with cologne, or whatever smell you are using.
Each girl must smell the flowers to determine which pot hides the bunny!
Note: if you and the girls have read Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit, you will recognise this scenario!

Station Three: Feeling:
Materials:
Drawstring bag
3 objects close to the same size: a ball, a block or cube, a plastic egg filled with treats
Directions:
Tell each girl there is an egg in the bag with her treats inside.
Each girl must determine which is the egg shape by reaching in and feeling it with her hand!

By Shelagh Walsh, Spark Guider, District Program Adviser