E is for ... Easter

E is for Easter, Egg, & Elephant!

We've had lots of fun this week:

Decorating Eggs & Huggers

Small World Play

Egg Collage

We turned our collage eggs & other eggs that I cut out from the boys paintings & drawings in to this Easter display. I used blue tack to attach them along our floating shelf that we have in the kitchen. As we don't have a fire place this shelf is effectively our mantle where we display cards etc. & above is where we display the boys artwork.

We used our pom pom magnets again this week with an egg print out from 3 Dinosaurs Easter Pack, I have also printed out some other ages from their spring pack which we will probably complete over the Easter weekend.

 We have also been using these Easter colouring sheets, I was very impressed by Josephs (4) kisses (top left).

Joseph also had his first go at colouring by numbers, he has done this on the PC & tablet before but not on paper. We used a sheet from Confessions of a Homescholer's letter of the week curriculum.

 I explained to Joseph that he needed to look at the numbers next to the colour & find it on the picture & colour it using that colour pen. I then turned my attention to Daniel (2.5), when I turned back around, Joseph had used a line to link all the colours up to the relevant part of the picture, before colouring it.

When printing most of our work sheets I tend to use the draft option when printing, which uses much less ink, when printing colours this does make them very pale & in this case made red pink & brown orange. So I used our felt pens to colour over the printed squares, this worked really well as it meant that they were all the same shades as the pens we have.

When I picked up the boys polystyrene eggs I got a slightly larger one for myself. I'd seen several ideas on Pintrest, but didn't pin any of them so cant give credit oops! I used a selection of buttons from my stash, some new & some upcycled. I used some cheap coloured pins to attach the buttons on to my egg & another pin to attach some ribbon at the top. I'm pleased with the effect however its not quite as good as I was expecting! It was however nice to do some crafting just for me, as I'm usually making & sewing for the boys or to sell.

We still have our Easter bonnets to make but as the boys haven't been feeling to well & Daddy has now gone down with man flu, I thought I had better put this post together before I go down with it! I hope you all have a great Easter with your families & if you are looking for some more Easter ideas take a look at my Pintrest board.

x Jo x

Easter Chick Farm

Continuing our letter E week, we made a Easter chick farm (named by Joseph (4)).  The boys helped me gather & make this box so it was hard to get a pic before they started playing.

      We used: 

• Wood shavings for the base
• Brown plastic mushroom container for the hill
• Lots of yellow chicks
• Chickens from our Fisher Price Farm
• Fencing from our small farm
• Plastic eggs - from kinder eggs
• Bouncy eggs (they were dinosaur eggs last week)
• Egg boxes
• Shredded yellow paper
• A couple of ladybirds that wanted in on the action!

They totally loved this sensory small world box, they loved playing with the wood shavings! I'm really not keen on the wood shavings as they made such a mess!

My kitchen floor afterwards!

x Jo x

Egg Decorating & Huggers

We decided to get our entry's ready for the decorated egg competition, held at our local Easter party. I picked up some polystyrene eggs from a local stationary shop, however they are available from most craft shops & have been seen in the £ shops. 

We used the left over tissue paper from our Easter Egg Collages, to decorate them. First we covered the egg in white glue then added tissue & more glue until the egg was all covered. I did have to help them at the end by putting on some more glue to stick all the tissue down. They took approximately a day to dry (I turned them 1/2 way through), we dried these on a plastic bag so they wouldn't stick.

We made some really cute egg huggers using free printables from:

• Bunny Egg Hugger - Skip to my lou
• Chick Egg Hugger - Pixel Occasions (Link to free b/w printable is at the bottom of the post)

I printed them on to cream/white card & cut them out for the boys. They then coloured them in & added eyes (always a hit). I stapled them together for the boys & we added some shredded tissue & our dry egg.

x Jo x

Easter Egg Collage

We have finally moved on the letter E, which is good timing for Easter! So we started off with some easter egg collages inspired by this post that I pinned. Joseph (4) & I cut up lots of coloured scrap paper, card & tissue. The boys used white glue to stick them on. I did say that it was going to make Easter eggs & Daniels even looks egg shaped.

 Once dry I made an egg shaped template & drew arond it on the back & cut them out. I really like how colourfull they are & the crisp lines, created by cutting the egg shape afterwards.

 Similar to when we made our valentines heart display, I used some of the boys random pictures from toddler group to make some more eggs.

I'm not sure where we are going to display these eggs, possibly a banner? 

We have lots more easter crafts planned, including some boys bonnets. 

For more craft ideas why not check out my Easter & Spring pintrest board.

x Jo x

D is for Dinosaur...

 D is for Dinosaur & Daniel, we started off our letter of the week with our Dinoland small world play, which both boys loved & it was played with on & off all week. 

The boys made these Double Daffodil cards to give Nanny & Grandma on mothers day (UK). We then had a go at some dropper art, at a local toddler group.

 For our worksheets this we again visited Confessions Of A Homescholer & we also downloaded the dinosaur pack from Over The Bog Moon. This week for our do-a-dot sheets I decided to have a go at making some pom pom magnets like these. I used a hot glue gun to stick some round magnets that we already had on to the back of some pom poms, when i ran out of magnets I cut up some free magnets (advertising etc) to use. Some of these were a little thin so to make them stronger i used the glue to double it up before sticking on the pom pom.

 Both boys have loved the pom poms as they have been able to use the sheet over & over, we have also had a couple of free hand creations on the fridge. I was really excited when I saw this pin on pintrest Joseph (4) has always struggled holding a pen/pencil, so next time he was colouring I grabbed an old, sock & cut 2 holes, MAGIC! It really works & he loves it. Joseph calls it his pinching parrot like from the recent series, I Can Cook (UK TV show). I might even add eyes & a beak for him!

 We also had a go at the pre-writing practise from the dinosaur pack, Daniel (2.5) loved the fact that he was helping the mummy dinosaur find its egg. I think he liked the sense of purpose rather than just tracing because he was asked!

We have 2 sets of Leapfrog Fridge Phonics, one lower & one uppercase. I bought the 2nd set from a charity, partly because our 1st set was missing a couple of letters & partly so that we would have 2 base units one for each of the boys! As part of our letter of the week i have been putting away all the other letters & just leaving out that weeks letter.

We have had a great week with letter D, but are looking forward to E for Easter & Egg!

x Jo x

Dropper Art

We did this activity at a local toddler group, so I didn't take many pictures so as not to put pictures of other kids on the net. But the boys both loved this so much that I just had to post about it. It also fits in with our letter of the week - D.

 We used ready mixed paint that had been watered down by about 1/3 & large droppers (or pipettes), I have some small ones at home but I'm on the look out for these larger ones. On to A4 coloured card (that had been pre-folded in half) the boys used the droppers to drip, dribble & squirt the paint on to their card. Once finished we re-folded the card then opened it out to see the finished effect.

I really love these & think they look a but like butterflies, it would work well on card pre-cut in to a butterfly shape.

x Jo x

Snow In March - Fun Bath

 I can't believe that spring is just around the corner & we are busy preparing for Easter & we have SNOW! Snow in March is practically unheard of in the UK (especially the south) its almost as crazy as our BBQ & paddling pool in October a couple of years ago.

The boys were disappointed that we didn't get enough snow to go sledging or build a snowman this time. So we decided to have a snowman fun bath instead. 

I made some basic snowmen using craft foam & stuck on some eyes. Joseph (4) decided that the carrot noeses were party hats & soon after made a sun using the arms as sun rays. I didn't get many pictures as the boys were splashing lots & I fired for my camera! 

They both really love fun baths & they ask for them all the time. Its a great way to let them be creative & makes a real change from regular bath toys.

x Jo x

Dinoland

After the B for Builder small world play went down so well, I decided to make a D for Dinosaur box for the boys. In the base of our box I used small cardboard squares, which is actually for the base of our pet rat cage, its called Ecobale & is a type of horse bedding!  I made boulders out of scrunched up paper bags & sed some rocks from our beach small world. I added some plastic plants, eggs & 2 palm trees, that the boys made at a toddler group using tinsle & kitchen roll tubes.

 During play my paper bag bolders became dinosaur nests!

We used our Ladybird Dinosaur book to look up the names of our figures & taked about how big they would have been & what they liked to eat.

They got the dinosaur figures from Santa and they hadn't really been played with since, this was a great opportunity to give the boys a starting point to begin play. They both enjoyed this box and like most of our others it has been asked for several times.

x Jo x