Egg-credible

I've been having great success with "egg magic" in my Terrific Twos and and Family Opens (which should really be called, this season, "Pretty Much Terrific Twos, Too"). I've done stuff like this with the scarves and hand-out puppets, too, but it's all come together with the egg shakers.

I hand out an egg to all the kids, let them shake them for a few seconds to get their silliness out, then say we are going to play an imagination magic game.

First, I ask the kids to pretend like they're eating the egg, yum yum yum. Then, I hold my egg in a way they can't see it when I hold up my hands, palms toward me, and announce mine is all gone. This amazes them. Then I show them where it is and ask if they want to make their eggs disappear, too. Of course they do! So we hide them under our arms (two-year-olds are adorable when discovering their own armpits, hee), between our knees, and under our bottoms (when I say we're imagining we're mama hens). I encourage them to say "ta-da!!" and to get their grown-ups involved.

Afterwards, we try balancing the eggs on our heads and shoulders, knees and toes (and guess what song this ties into?) and then sometimes sing "Wiggle Fingers" but swap eggs for fingers. And then we do the Milkshake Song. All this takes a good six or seven minutes and is adorable and a great way to engage a big group of kids age 2-5, really. And you don't have to memorize much--just come up with little "magic" challenges for them on the spot.

Lately I've been reading Charlie Chick and Hurry, Hurry (both featuring a chicken or egg) to bookend my ovum fun--both are terrific for 2s!