Eggs

Easter goes quickly around here. School is so busy that sometimes there is not much preparation time or even a chance to get out all the decor. Yet we do always dye Easter eggs as a tradition. There is many great ideas out on the web and with the Martha Egg App we really had a lot of inspiration this year.Two things we have learned over the years is that we must use room temperature eggs and to clean them off well using a towel moistened with vinegar.

Happy Easter!

Hatching Chicks

This is a fun easy project to do with 3-7yr old children.
E's class made them in her kinder class and from the results I could tell they were simple and cute.

Materials needed are:
white, pink and yellow 11x14 constructions paper, brads, glue stick, medium to large googly eyes, watercolors and feathers.
Using the templates provided as a guide or enlarge 200%, draw out the egg and chick.

http://www.coloring.ws/t_template.asp?t=http://www.coloring.ws/simple-shapes/egg.gif

Make sure your child paints the egg before cutting it in half. Have your child place googly eyes and feathers to bird before attaching it to the egg.
Once the egg is cut attach brad at side of egg to connect the top to the bottom.With a glue stick have your child glue the chick to the back of the egg.
Your egg is now complete.
Making several gives you the opportunity to create a banner.

Easter Panaroma

This has been one of my favorite crafts yet!
Our local Michael's store hosted craft time this weekend focusing on Easter. Michael's had each child start with a large or medium egg made from poly foam. Each child then was to interpret their own vision using the egg.
Both M and E chose to make a "Panorama". A panorama is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model. Please note the opening can be constricting to work within, E had a couple times where she felt frustrated so she required some help.
M enjoyed the process and it may be due to her calm nature or her age? She really enjoyed setting up the interior of her egg and was very happy with her end result. She had a vision and was able to carry it our with the given supplies.

Materials used:
•Medium Craft Egg
•Chennile Easter chicks
•Paper Easter Grass
•Craft Boa
•Mini Glitter Eggs
•Versa-Tool™
•Glue Gun and Glue Sticks
•Artificial flowers
•Scissors

To begin use a Versa-Tool to cut the front oval shape out of egg as shown.
Hot glue inside bottom of egg with Easter grass. We used the paper grass rather than plastic. Use hot glue or tacky glue to adhere mini eggs inside egg as desired. Glue chicks (choose desired size) for this use hot glue it will secure the chicks to the area better than tacky glue..
Use hot glue to adhere boa around cut out opening. Hot glue artificial flowers or ribbon on top or side.

What really impressed me about this project? The end products,they are very whimsy,gave us a new medium to work with and the creativity that went into them.
This project took a couple hours to complete and requires your child to have dexterity and patience as well as handle hot glue,so I don't recommend it for younger than 5. The cost is a bit higher than some crafts we do but under $20 for all the supplies minus the Versa tool and hot glue gun. All the supplies can be found at Michael's but check your past Easter supplies as you may already have some of the supplies on hand. Our friend Tammy also suggested to check your local thrift store as they may have some of the supplies as well as other small items to fill your panorama with.

Easter Sunday Fun

The girls and I will be in Texas for Easter visiting my brother and I am not sure we will make Easter crafts as my nieces and nephew are in the tween stage so crafts may not be there thing?It is a a few days before we leave so we are making some easy yet fun crafts.
The egg critter idea comes from the Family Fun April 2009 issue. It was a very cute idea and the materials were simple. In fact we had the eggs from previous year Easter baskets and the felt we had from other projects.If you do this project with a child younger than four they will need assistance for almost of all the steps as the felt ears, tail etc. are very small and hard to glue on.

http://jas.familyfun.go.com/crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=12148

E loves baking!!!I mean seriously loves to bake. I don't posses the patience to let her bake very often with me. E likes to do all the steps and insists that I don't help with anything but the oven and the clean up. As a result of my showing little patience for her passion she often tries to invite herself to my good friends Beth's( she is way more patient than I am she proves it to me every time I am with her).

So if you ever have a child that loves to do something you don't have the patience to do with them, take my advice find some other adult that does.I think it is important to allow kids to explore their passions and interests but I also think that it must be fostered in an environment of love and patience.

Easter bunny cookies.Simple and delicious. Use pre made sugar cookie dough to cut down on time and mess.

Bunny Delivery

This week we kick off Easter fun....

These cute bunny envelopes will be used to deliver small gifts to cousins and Easter wishes to grandmas.

We used a template from the April Family Fun Magazine(provided below) to make them. The template is intended to be used to make a teddy bear a bunny disguise but is easily converted to a bunny envelope.

http://a.familyfun.go.com/Resources/global/printables/templates/FF0409EF_BunnyEars.pdf

Supplies Used: card envelopes,construction paper in white, pink and black, a felt black tip marker and googly eyes.

Side note: in an effort to be more green we reused envelopes from past year Christmas's cards that never mailed out and for the sizzle pak we reused sizzle from an old ornament box. Don't have sizzle laying around? Make your own sizzle by shredding color scrap paper in an electronic document shredder. The sizzle is also good for filling Easter baskets and when Easter is over just toss it in the recycling bin.