A SOUND EASTER EGG HUNT FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED OR BLIND CHILDREN & ADULTS

Braeden loves any reason for a celebration and particularly likes activities we all do together as a family  so we try to always ensure he can participate in everything, even if that means some modifications. We’ve previously written about a wheelchair accessible Easter egg hunt and chocolate alternatives for those that can’t eat chocolate or simply don’t like it.

We’ve given lots of things a go but I’ve always had in the back of my mind a story I read about a US dad who adapted an Easter egg hunt for his daughter who is blind. Although Braeden can see well, when he was younger he had lots of eye therapy for his lack of visual attention. It’s still an issue to this day with him depending on his peripheral vision. People often think he’s not paying attention, but in fact his peripheral vision is his sneaky super power. Anyway, this year we thought we’d change things up and try a sound Easter egg hunt and although this is directed at children and adults who are vision impaired or blind, we found it was lots of fun. It also encouraged working on some fine motor skills goals for Braeden to turn off the sound Easter eggs. The little toggle switch under the egg is quite small. This activity won’t suit anyone who is sensitive to noise.

A Sound Easter Egg Hunt for Vision Impaired and Blind children and adults

I’ll say from the outset that Hubby is handy which made this possible. If you’ve got a handyman in the family this is a job for them.

You’ll need to go to an electronics store. We visited Jaycar which stocked all the bits we needed and we bought opening plastic Easter eggs from a $2 store. They just need to be large enough to house the 9V battery etc inside so choose largish ones. Hubby had to drill a hole in the base of the eggs for the toggle switch.

What you’ll need to make a sound Easter egg

These are the items as listed on the Jaycar website (we have no affiliation, this is just where we purchased our items to make the eggs)

You’ll also need a fluxed solder and soldering iron.

I thought it was probably easier to have Hubby do a how-to video for making the sound eggs rather than me trying to describe it, so take a look below. If you have any questions, please let us know and we’ll try to help.

You can either use the sound eggs to alert a person to the location of a large chocolate egg or you can pop a small chocolate egg inside.

Depending on how the person who is blind or vision impaired feels about it, others in the family could have their eyes covered to participate in the hunt.

Final tip – put some tape around the egg because we found with the pressure of Braeden’s excitement at finding the egg they would pop open and the battery would fall out.

Due to the small parts involved we don’t recommend this is left with any child who isn’t supervised.

All credit to the clever dad who first came up with this idea. It was certainly a hit with Braeden as something different.

Happy egg hunting.