It’s super easy to make a homemade egg carton Easter basket in preschool! You definitely need to add this craft to your collection of Easter activities for toddlers and preschoolers.
With Easter on the way, your school may be planning an Easter egg hunt for students. Make the egg carton Easter basket with the kids ahead of time. Then, they can use it for the Easter egg hunt!
We typically have a particular limit of eggs that each student can get during the hunt. The egg carton basket will help students keep up with how many eggs they’ve found. You can even trim the last few egg cups to make a ten-frame egg carton!
Related: Spring Activities for Preschoolers
Every year, my preschool holds an Easter egg hunt for the students and their families. It’s a tradition that the kiddos and parents enjoy, but I must admit I always get a bit stressed by some aspects of the hunt. To problem solve around my concerns, the students and I made homemade Easter baskets from egg cartons! I’m biased, but I think they turned out lovely!
Egg Carton Easter Baskets
These Easter egg hunt baskets are incredibly simple to put together, making them perfect for preschoolers and toddlers. Depending on the needs of your students, the kids might be able to do the entire thing themselves!
Easter Basket Materials
In addition to being easy, these egg carton baskets don’t require too many materials either! That’s a bonus in my book. Here’s what we used (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post):
- Empty cardboard egg cartons (I asked for donations)
- Acrylic paint
- Thick ribbons
- Hot glue gun
Related: Easy Easter Art with Cookie Cutters
If you want to get really fancy, you can incorporate even more craft supplies. It really depends on how much your students want to decorate their baskets. Here are a few other possibilities to consider:
- Pompoms
- Mini chicks
- Stickers
- Buttons
Once you have all of your materials gathered, take a few minutes to cut off the top of the egg cartons. I just used a regular pair of scissors to do so. Then it’s time to grab the kids and get started!
Egg Carton Easter Basket Directions
First, talk with your students about what they’ll be making. If you have a school egg hunt, let the children know the baskets can be used for that. Otherwise, explain they can use them in your dramatic play center or at home.
Let the children choose their preferred paint colors and paint away. I had a variety of colors and was happy to let the kids mix and match as they saw fit. A few children even requested colors that weren’t out, so I grabbed those upon request.
Some children will spend a lot of time and effort painting their egg cartons. Others will be more minimalistic with their approaches. Either way is perfectly fine!
Related: Spring Crafts
Let the cartons dry once the children are done painting. While they’re drying, have the children choose which ribbons they’d like as the Easter basket handle.
Then use a hot glue gun to attach the ribbon to the egg carton. I glued the ribbons to the bottoms and sides of the egg cartons.
Related: Easter Egg Ideas
Why we Made Homemade Easter Baskets
To be perfectly transparent with you, Easter egg hunts make me a little anxious. Every family donates 12 filled Easter eggs for our hunt, but in the past not every child took home 12 eggs.
Yes, I know a lot of people may be rolling their eyes at me but it’s a concern of mine! For one thing, I’ve had parents get upset with me about this. More importantly, the kiddos get a bit upset when they can only find 3 eggs when a pal finds 20. During giant egg hunts with hundreds and hundreds of eggs, this isn’t that big a deal. For our little preschool class, it sure can be!
So, that little bit of concern led to trying something new with the egg carton Easter baskets. The cartons have 12 spaces, which allowed the children to practice one-to-one correspondence as they counted and added their eggs to the baskets.
How Did the Egg Carton Easter Basket Hold Up in an Egg Hunt?
Overall, I think the baskets were great! The kids and I had fun chatting and painting together, and each child was proud of their egg carton Easter basket.
Most children went home with a dozen eggs after our egg hunt, although there were a couple with not enough. I think that’s because I didn’t explain the baskets to all of the parents ahead of time, so a couple of kids probably went home with extra eggs.
Related: Easter Egg Sculpture and STEM Challenge
The only real problem we had was containing some of those super enormous Easter eggs! Our homemade Easter baskets were perfect for regular-sized eggs, though. The children also loved using their baskets to pretend egg hunt during centers, too.
I’ve received a few comments questioning the placement of the ribbon handle. Surprisingly enough, we didn’t run into any problems with baskets tipping and spilling everywhere. For younger children, I’d suggest running the handles length-wise instead of how did it.
Have your students ever made their own Easter baskets? Let me know about your favorites in the comments!
Preschool Easter Resources
Below you’ll find two ready-to-go lesson plan sets, as well as a roll and count math pack. All three would be great to use around Easter!
The lesson plan packs come with completed, printable lesson plans full of hands-on learning activities for preschool children. They also have book suggestions, whole group activities, small group activities, center ideas, and coordinating printables to use with the kids.
The Easter roll and count math pack has 16 differentiated game mats and 9 print-and-assemble math cubes. These games are great for preschool through early elementary.
Click on the photos below to get your own (or for more information):
Related: Easter baking soda and vinegar experiment
More Homemade Easter Baskets
Our egg carton Easter baskets aren’t the only DIY Easter basket crafts out there! If you’re looking for even more ideas, I have you covered! Click on the links below to read about even more homemade Easter baskets you can make with your students:
- Recycled Tissue Paper Easter Baskets from Red Ted Art
- Easy Woven Easter Baskets from Pink Stripey Socks
- Paper Plate Easter Basket from NurtureStore
- Milk Bottle Easter Baskets from Kids Craft Room
- Bunny Bags from Fun-A-Day
Be sure to check out my Easter preschool activities Pinterest board for even more Easter-y fun!
Originally published April 2015
This is BRILLIANT in a why-have-I-never-heard-of-this way! Resuse, personalization, no plastic, even it out for the littler ones! I love it!
~Lee
Lee, you are awesome! Thank you! 🙂
Not silly at all. I feel the same way you do. I’ve had years where the parents evened out the bags of eggs while the kids were playing. Then, I had one year where a child’s parents and siblings went through and gathered up as many as they could while other kids had only 3 eggs. This year, I tried labeling the eggs with numbers and the kids had to find a certain number so everyone ended up with the same amount. The parents’ reaction was, “Oh, I thought it was a free for all.” 🙂 I like your dozen egg basket idea. I may have to try that next year.
Karen, your opinion means so much to me! Thank you! 🙂 I was pretty happy with how they turned out, and the kiddos DID have a lot of fun painting the egg cartons.
Love it! This is perfect for tomorrow Easter egg hunt.
Thanks, Natasha! 🙂
These are ADORABLE! What a fun clever idea!!
Beth
Thanks so much, Beth! 🙂 I love how they turned out.
What a wonderful idea. You are clever. Can’t wait to make them.
Thanks so much, Debi! Let me know how yours turn out. 🙂