An egg can be quiet or noisy! You can enjoy talking with your child about eggs as you read An Egg is Quiet by Diane Aston, a beautifully illustrated book about a variety of eggs in the natural world. 

Eggs have a protective shell, and they are good for quietly holding things inside. You might use this as a way to talk about and practice becoming quiet inside—like an egg—when children have a difficult time calming down. It might be fun to make a soft cuddly egg from downy fabric as  a “quiet” egg for a child to hug and calm themselves down, when they need a moment.

If you want to let out some energy, check out Jean Feldman's CD Nursery Rhymes and Good 'ol Times from the library and bring on the noise! Make up a “Humpty Dance” to Dr. Jean's Humpty Dumpty. When the song stops, Humpty falls down.

For a listening activity, you might make  some "sound maker" eggs from plastic eggs. Place items that make interesting sounds inside the plastic eggs—such as  jingle bells, beads, gravel, seeds or paper clips. Glue or tape them securely.  As a challenge, make two eggs for each sound. Give your child all the sound maker eggs and invite them to arrange the shakers into pairs in an egg carton. Gather up a few of your egg shakers and recite some nursery rhymes in rhythm.

Enjoy being egg-spressive!  Then, check out a few of these wonderful books about eggs:

Kevin Henkes does it again with a sweet story about eggs that hatch, bringing both friendship and surprise. The graphic format allows for lots of enjoyable repetition that is instantly readable by little ones. A masterful combination of both surprise and predictability. 

Here's a lovely new lift-the-flap book for the littlest readers. Using the "bear hunt" song format, a family of bunnies goes traipsing through the farm, hunting for Easter Eggs under the flaps. Along the way they can't go over the lambs, and can't go under the chicks, and can't go around the bees...so when they discover a wolfish surprise inside a very large egg, it's a quick run back through the book with chocolate eggs as a final reward. Toddlers will love it!

P. Zonka has the hen house in a uproar—she doesn't seem to want to lay an egg! She spends her time admiring the beautiful sunset or the gorgeous flowers, and all the hens are starting to cluck about it. Finally, P Zonka makes an effort and, as you might be able to tell from her name, lays a beautiful Ukrainian pyzanky egg that reflects all the color and delight in her imagination. The extraordinarily lovely artwork plays with Ukrainian folk art themes.

Jenkins and Page are at it again, with exquisite cut paper illustrations and fun facts about the who, why and how of egg laying. This is a perfect Easter basket present for inquisitive children who want to know details about nature and, as always, this husband and wife team gives us a super early science book for preschoolers and elementary ages.

With vibrant, child-like illustrations and an enthusiastic T-Rex protagonist, you can't go wrong with this one for a toddler story time. Lots of verbal repetition gives the book melody, and the story is fast and full of fun. Afterwards, it will have your kids tumbling, bouncing and rolling along as they act this one out!  Want to energize your egg hunt? This is your book!