Easter Egg Fun (matching & sun catcher)

(25 Months)

While searching the internet for fun learning activities, I came across this awesome letter matching activity from Joyfully Weary.   Since we buy 18-packs of eggs, I decided we would use two packs and make the remaining ten spots for the numbers 1-10.  I love how quick this project comes together.  Instead of matching lower case to lower case, I decided to match upper case on the egg to lower case in the carton (sine we already have a lower case to lower case puzzle- another easy peasy one to make).  Also to help my kidabunks distinguish between numbers and letters (some of the numbers and letters look alike: the number 1 and lower case l, the number 0 and letter O, the number 9 and lower case q), I used black scrapbook stickers for the letters and pink sparkly stickers for the numbers .  

This was a bit more challenging than I expected.  It took a little longer for them to find the correct match between all of the empty spots.  We'll definitely be working on this one for awhile.  

EASTER EGG SUN CATCHERS
I was so excited to work on this art project!  The first time we made a sun catcher we made them clover-shaped for St. Patrick's Day and they came out fantastic!  I forgot to take pictures and post (ooops).  This is another inexpensive, fun and beautiful project.

Materials- To make one sun catcher you will need to:  Cut out a pair (one for the front and one for the back) of Easter egg shapes out of pastel construction paper.  Next, you need to cut out small 1 or 2 inch strips of pastel tissue paper (we used lavender, pink, light blue and pale yellow) - you will need enough to fill the inside of your cutout, with plenty of extra for overlapping.  Then, you will need to cut two pieces (one for the front, one for the back) of contact paper large enough to cover your Easter egg.  Before inviting your little one (or big one) to the table, tape down the underside of the contact paper to your work table, peel back the paper protecting the contact paper and stick on the Easter egg.  Then let the fun begin!

 

Little Miss ran out of pink slips .  When I told her that there weren't any more,
Wild One said "here you go."  I love that boy!

Wild One decided to go a bit overboard with overlapping his strips.  

Counting and Stamping

(25 Months)

TOT SCHOOL

I went to the arts and crafts store this weekend and bought a set of number and letter stickers for an Easter/Spring learning project for later on in the week.  Wild One has been "working" on the muffin tin numbers every day since we first introduced them.  I love hearing him say, "count count".

While he was having his smoothie and playing with Grandpa in the lanai, I had an idea - I should add number stickers to the bottom of the muffin tin to go along with the numbers on the red balls.  I quickly added the stickers and then brought them to Wild One.  His response was "oooohh numbers".  He got right to work pulling a red ball from the basket and looking for the corresponding number on the muffin tin.

Then Little Miss wanted a turn.  I'm amazed at how much they enjoy this activity!  We finally added it to their learning shelves, and so far Wild One hasn't thrown the balls around the room (I know I just jinxed myself).

 

We decided to do a little stamping activity.  Nothing too messy, no markers, no paint, no dot markers- just stamping.

   

Or so I thought.  Wild One pressed the pink ink pad against his cheek and then smeared the ink across his face.  I'm so glad it's bath night, because he's going to need to soak for a little while.

  

  

  

Creating a Sticky Mess

(25 Months)

One afternoon last week while the kids were busy playing with their rice bucket, I sat beside them and cut out a whole bunch of spring pictures from the Williams Sonoma catalog.  I thought it would be fun to make a spring collage using the pretty pictures and some pastel construction paper.  We haven't used glue or glue sticks yet, so this will make for an interesting art project.

I can't believe I've never done any pasting with the kids.  We do a lot of drawing with crayons, markers, dot markers and chalk.  The house is filled with museum quality finger and brush paintings (yes, I'm a proud mommy).  We've used contact paper to make collages, but we've never used glue.  So, today we tried gluing.

Prior to inviting the kidabunks over to their table, I set out the spring cutouts, the pastel construction paper, two small cups of white school glue and two watercolor paint brushes.  When they came to the table, Wild One said "oooh paint" and Little Miss started naming the objects in the pictures that I cut out (ducks, bunny, eggs, flower).  So far, so good.

Grandpa and I modeled how to put the glue on the back of the picture and then how to pat the picture down onto the construction paper (they knew how to get the glue onto the brush, it's the same technique as painting).  We then just assisted when necessary (as in the time when Little Miss decided to brush some glue into her hair) and let them explore gluing and placing the pictures.

Wild One pasted four pictures and then was "all done".  I felt a bit deflated, I cut out so many pictures and he's done already?  My inside Keith voice told me that "it's not always about me" (that's still a hard concept for me to understand), and I just smiled as Wild One climbed Mt. Grandpa and snuggled himself onto his buddy's lap to watch his sister work at glueing.

Then he hopped on his bike and started scooting himself around the lanai.  Wild One's starting to go really fast on his bike.  He's already almost gliding!

Meanwhile, Little Miss stayed with this gluing activity for a good ten or fifteen minutes.  She worked at carefully painting the glue onto the pictures and gently pat pat patting the pictures onto the pink construction paper.

You can see in the above second picture of Little Miss that she prefers to paint the construction paper with glue and then place the picture on top of the glue.  That's my little girl, she likes to do things her way.

In fact, fast forward to later on this afternoon and Little Miss is busy working on creating a tower out of her stacking cups.  She placed one of the cups out of order (placing too small a cup on one of the lower cups), so I told her that she needs to place the cups in order or else the tower will fall.  Well, once again Little Miss does it her way and proves me wrong.  You can actually see how she reverses the order of the remaining top cups so that they do not topple over.  How is she this smart at 25 months?  We are in SO much trouble.

Walking- that's it, just walking

(25 Months)

All good walks end with BUBBLES!