🐰Here are a few of our favorite ways to learn, play & create during Easter!🐰
🐰These plastic eggs make the perfect vessel to hold the ingredients needed to create this simple STEM activity! Place the egg halves in an egg carton or ice cube tray. Add a tablespoon on baking soda into the egg. If you want to make it colorful you can also add in a few drops of food coloring! Then, in a squirt bottle, mix together half white vinegar and half water. This magical mixture is what makes the bubbly, fizzy eruptions!
🐰Want to make it extra bubbly? Add a squirt of dish soap into the bottle of the egg!
🐰There is nothing more classic, more calming & simpler than water play. Our motto is "Just Add Water" & it is has served us well throughout the years! The plastic eggs are a perfect size for little hands & they will help to strengthen fine motor skills as the child scoops & dumps & pour with them. They also serve as a great reinforcer of colors. You can match them, make patterns with them, sort them, count them or just play away!
🐰Vertical play is so beneficial for babies, toddlers & children. It encourages tummy time, helps strengthen the muscles for sitting
🐰Leaf Stamping is such an engaging way to explore nature. Go on a nature walk & collect a few different leaves that have fallen to the ground. Spread a thin layer on paint on the leaf, we have used washable paint, acrylic paint & watercolors & they all come out beautifully! You can make bunny ears like below or simply stamp the leaves all around your paper. They are so pretty & unique every time!
🐰We love a good dot sticker activity. They are easy to throw together, they strengthen fine motor skills, they reinforce color identification & they can be differentiated in SO many ways! For this activity, we drew simple bunnies on a piece of kraft paper. For each nose, we put a different color dot sticker. The kiddos job were to identify the color, peel them off & sort! In addition, this also works on 1:1 correspondence, hand-eye coordination, independent work skills & crossing the midline!
🐰If you have never used nature treasures as a paint brush before, here's your sign!!! Not only are you connecting with nature, but you are observing & creating & exploring outdoors. For this, we drew a bunny face on a piece of kraft paper, but you don't have to. You can draw something or just let them make beautiful brush strokes on the paper. We had a storm the night before and this branch had fallen to the ground. After tying it together with some string, we dipped it in paint & happily created away! Use a variety or nature treasures to compare & contrast the different marks they make!
🐰Felt sticks to felt & that makes it an ultimate mess-free crafting material! It is also relatively inexpensive & can be reused in multiple ways. For this activity we cut an egg shape & then a variety or shapes & squiggles. This way, a kiddo can decorate the egg over & over again! This is a great quiet time activity & would also be perfect for taking to a doctor's appointment, car trip or restaurant.
If you want to add in vertical play, tape the egg to the wall!
🐰Color codes are a great way to blend academic skill with art. They can be as simple or complex as you need them to be, making them effective for many different age groups. For this activity, we focused on counting by 10's. You could do this same activity working on letters, numbers, shapes, word families, etc. If you are creating a color code for a younger learner, I would start with 2-4 colors & work your way up. You can use crayons, markers, stickers or dot markers to complete!
🐰Do you have a collection of foam stickers? If so, they make the cutest, festive play dough rollers! This is made with the inside roll of plastic wrap or aluminum foil; they are nice & firm & perfect for little hands. Simply add the stickers on, grab your play dough & have fun!
It’s amazing as is, simply stamping & creating away.
Want some extension activities?
🐰Let the circles dry & paint them with watercolors.
🐰Count how many circles you stamp.
🐰Graph how many of each color you made.
🐰Make a color code activity with numbers, letters or words.
🐰Write the alphabet (or letters or sight words or shapes.) call out the name of one and have your kiddo search & stamp!
🐰A bin with rice & plastic eggs is all you need to create a perfect sensory set up! They can scoop & dump & pour & bury & smush & push the rice around. While they do that they are working on amazing skills & strengthening those sweet finger muscles.
Here are a few variations to add in an academic twist!
🥕matching the letters: you can differentiate this further by starting with matching upper to uppercase, lower to lowercase and then moving in to upper to lower. You can also use this to work on beginning sounds.
🥕word families: word families are such a great tool for beginning readers. You focus on learning the chunk, for example, -at. By learning that -at says /at/ they can quickly read words in that family like cat, rat, mat, hat.
🥕pre-fixes: We paired a tricky skill with sensory play & let the magic happen! You could differentiate this further & do suffixes or tricky endings such as “
-es, -invite, -ly.
🐰My son has been working on b/d identification in his kindergarten class. It’s definitely one that takes tons of exposure, across multiple settings, to master. It is VERY common to reverse them in writing & reading. I set up this super-fast activity (literally took me 2 minutes) for him to practice. While he worked, I sat with him & had him say the letter aloud. He loves working with dot markers & it was a quick & easy way for him to practice!
🐰A simple invitation to create: finish the pattern! It works on pre-writing skills, color identification, fine motor skills & patterning! I used a piece of cardboard box, but you can do it on paper as well. Draw lines (these are pre-writing strokes so it's a double whammy!) & use dot stickers to create the beginning of a pattern. Provide the kiddo with the dot stickers & have them complete. This not only works on patterning, it helps them practice color identification, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills & more.
It’s simple. It’s inexpensive. It works on SO many skills. Some may see just a big mess crashing down, but let me tell you what my teacher brain sees my kiddos working on…👀
🐰Planning
🐰Problem solving
🐰Perseverance
🐰Engineering
🐰Balance & coordination
🐰Counting
🐰Self-regulation (this is a healthy & safe way to relieve aggression & frustration)
🐰Cause& effect
🐰Turn taking
Want to make it educational?!
🐰Instead of bunny faces, write numbers or letters or sight words on cups.
🐰Give them a number & have them build a tower with that many cups.
🐰Draw shapes on cups & name that as you stack.
🐰All you need is felt (I think it cost me $2 total) & scissors to create this soft & sweet egg stacker!
I know I say it all the time, but, play can be simple. It can be inexpensive. It can be manageable at home.
While my daughter happily played, here are some of the skills she worked on:
🥚Color ID
🥚Shapes & textures
🥚Fine & gross motor
🥚Size comparisons
🥚Spacial relationships (on, under, on top of)
🥚Hand-eye coordination
🥚Crossing the midline
🥚Problem solving
🥚Language skills
🥚Perseverance
Do you know that felt sticks to felt? Hang it on the wall for vertical play!
Not into the egg shape? That’s ok. Make a square. Or a circle. Or the first letter of their name!
🐰All you need to make these magical sun catchers is cardboard, cellophane paper, an Xacto knife & Clear packing tape.
The cutest little nature carrots I ever did see🍃🥕🍃🥕
The less paint on the leaves, the better the prints! These would make the cutest canvas, card or painting for a friend!
