Tactile Easter Egg Decorating For Your Child Who Is Blind or Low Vision

We’re talking Easter egg decorating—but not your standard boiled eggs dipped in food coloring—accessible, tactile designing! While our finished products can still look creative and beautiful, our main aim is for them to be tactually interesting. We also want them to be enjoyable to create.

Determined to create simple, elegant eggs which would be interesting to tactually explore, such as decorating brown eggs with feathers. And what could be more beautiful, tactile, and in context to eggs than feathers?!

After hard-boiling eggs and allowing them to cool, simply adhere the delicate feathers to the eggs. Voila!

Consider the following tactile decorations if you don’t want to order feathers.

You can wrap items around hard-boiled or plastic eggs:

• Wikki stix
• Pipe cleaners
• Yarn of varying textures

You can adhere items on hard-boiled or plastic eggs:

• Craft feathers
• Felt shapes
• Tactile stickers
• Beads
• Pompoms
• Tissue paper bits
• Leaves or petals

Using real eggs is excellent because they help children grasp the concept of eggs; plastic eggs don’t have the same weight or texture as chicken eggs. Additionally, decorating with real feathers helps develop the concepts of feathers and birds.

Whichever items you choose for embellishment, arrange your items on a defined workstation—a rimmed cookie sheet can work well. Remember to utilize task lighting and color contrast if helpful for your child.

For additional Easter-related activities:

• Plan a beeping Easter egg hunt for your child who is blind or low vision.
• Using a plastic Easter egg as a mold, make egg-shaped bird treats for your winged visitors.
• Make “bird’s nest cookies” for a special treat.

To help you consider how to make all of your Easter activities accessible, read Including Your Child Who is Blind or Visually Impaired in Easter Traditions.