Let the Easter Crafts Begin!

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Reagan had a blast creating this bunny! Her fine motor skills were put to good use and she was loving the fact that the cotton balls were super sticky because of the glue! We obviously used washable paint when creating our pink nose, trust me that was the messiest part. Reagan was able to do most of this craft independently. I assisted in cutting and twisting the pipe cleaner, along with squeezing the glue. The first of many Easter crafts, I’m sure:)

Materials
Paper plate
Cotton balls
Scissors
Pipe cleaner ( I’m sure black and pink would be more appropriate, but we didn’t have those colors, so we used purple and red)
Pink Pom Pom ball ( again, a pink ball would be ideal, but we only had white, so we painted ours pink!)
Glue
White construction paper
Pink Marker or crayon
Black marker or crayon
Two google eyes

Directions

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If you don’t have a pink pom pom ball, squeeze a small amount of pink paint onto a plate and have your child roll the white pom pom ball around until it is covered in pink paint.

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Assist your child in squeezing the glue bottle to cover your paper plate in swirls of glue. Stick cotton balls onto plate, covering entire plate.

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Glue on google eyes.

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Glue pink pom pom down as nose.
Cut black pipe cleaner, or whatever color pipe cleaner that you’re using for whiskers, in half. Draw 4 lines with the glue. Place pipe cleaners on-top of traced glue line.

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Cut the pink pipe cleaner, or whatever color pipe cleaner you’re using for the mouth, in half and then cut another half inch or so off of each piece. Twist the top of the two pieces of pink pipe cleaner together and hook the bottoms. Glue below nose.

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Fold a white piece of construction paper in half and cut out the shape of a bunnies ear. Draw, on each ear in black marker, the inside of the bunnies ear. I free handed the cutting and the inside lines- they don’t have to be perfect;)
Using pink marker or crayon, color the inside of the bunnies ears. Glue ears to the back side of the paper plate.

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Happy Crafting!!

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Super Soft Rainbow

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Reagan’s been on a rainbow kick lately, so this super cute craft was right up her alley. Color identification and fine motor skills are put to good use throughout this activity!

Materials

20140323-204336.jpgString or ribbon
Glue
Cotton balls
Paper plate
Various colors of construction paper
Markers in corresponding colors to construction paper
Hole punch
Scissors

Directions

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Cut several strips of paper- I eyeballed while cutting- ours were not much smaller than an inch wide. Cut the paper the long way and keep the length to the strips. Reagan decided to color the strips; such a great addition!

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Cut the paper plate in half and punch a hole, in the plate, towards the top/center.

center

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Swirl glue, covering plate. Cover plate with cotton balls, pressing firmly. Reagan and I talked about the shape of the cotton balls, the color, how they felt and what they were representing within our project.

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Squeeze a line of glue towards the cut edge of the paper plate. Reagan picked the order of the strips, lined them up and pressed firmly for them to stay. We talked about the colors and came up with various things that were the same color as our strips- i.e. Green- grass, yellow- sun flower, red-grandmas lipstick and so on. ( the strips are glued on the opposite side of the plate from where the cotton balls were glued)

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Cut string or yarn to the length that you want and thread through punched hole, tie ends to secure.

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Hang for all to see!

One-to-One Correspondence

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We’ve been working on various number recognition and counting activities lately, and I have to admit that Reagan is really beginning to grasp the concept. I was excited to see a one-to-one correspondence activity in the ‘work’ area at Reagan’s young 2’s preschool. It’s reassuring to know that the skills that are being taught at home are being reinforced in school and vice versa. For those unfamiliar, one-to-one correspondence is usually explained as the ability to match one object to one (corresponding) number or object.
We recreated the activity from school and enjoyed sharing it with Reagan’s cousin.

Materials
Various colors of felt (we used 6, for numbers 1-6)
Scissors
Sharpie
Several buttons (we used 21, so that each felt heart would have enough buttons)

Directions
1. Cut heart shapes out of felt. We cut out 6 hearts, for numbers 1-6.

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2. Label each individual heart with a number and the corresponding number of x’s.

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3. Provide child with buttons.

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4. Model how activity is done. Count number of x’s, say number, point to number, place a button over each x. And/or point to number, say number, count number of x’s, place a button over each x.

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Such a simple and fun way to teach and reinforce one-to-one correspondence.
Below are links to additional activities. Enjoy!
fun-a-day
PreK Pages

Glitter Snowflakes

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These snowflakes, originally found here, were super easy to make, but took a long time, 15 plus hours to dry.  The plan was for this to be a craft for Reagan and I to do on a super chilly, 9 degree, day here in Rochester.  Unfortunately, the only part of this craft that Reagan was able to participate in was the shaking of the glitter onto the glue.  She wasn’t super disappointed, and luckily I still had left overs on hand from a Snow Man craft that we did a week or so back.

Materials

IMG_0059Paper

Writing Utensil- we used a black marker

Wax Paper

White liquid Glue

Glitter- we used silver

Needle

Thread- we used white

Directions

IMG_0057Free hand draw as many snowflakes as you would like to make onto a piece of paper.

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IMG_0062Cover your piece of paper with a sheet of wax paper. Using your glue, trace your snowflake.

IMG_0063IMG_0064IMG_0066 Cover snowflakes with glitter and leave to dry overnight.

IMG_0144When completely dry; carefully peel the snowflakes off of the wax paper.  I obviously wasn’t successful in peeling off each snowflake, but no snowflake is the same or perfect, so I we still used the ones that didn’t peel off perfectly.

IMG_0148IMG_0149IMG_0150 Using a needle and thread, poke a hole into the top of each snowflake and thread the string through.  Tie a knot to create a loop.

IMG_0154IMG_0153IMG_0151  We used our snowflakes to decorate our bar in the the kitchen.  The snowflakes add the perfect amount of sparkle to our kitchen!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mini Mallow Man

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Who doesn’t love a craft that you can snack on the ingredients while making!

Ingredients
Mini marshmallows
Pretzel Sticks
Glue
Construction Paper
White Paint
Black Paint or Black Marker
Orange Paint or Orange Marker
Smithing to hold paint

Directions
Draw three circles to make an outline of your snowman. I traced three different sized circular objects in the attempt to create perfect circles.

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Using glue trace around one circle and allow your child to place the mini marshmallows on the glue. Continue the same way with the last two circles.

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Using glue draw two lines off of the middle circle for the arms. Have your child place a pretzel stick on top of the lined glue for the snow mans arms.

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Have your child dip a mini marshmallow into white paint, like a stamp, and use the marshmallow to make snow!

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Paint on a hat, eyes, a mouth and buttons with the black paint. And a carrot nose, with the orange paint.

Allow to dry.
First winter craft of many! Enjoy!