Last minute Easter fun with preschoolers!

In case you need any extra Easter weekend ideas for fun with preschoolers, here is some randomness found across the web that all look quick and full of fun-ness!

All sorts of printables over at NickJr.com------

Here is a way to dye eggs using an every day product: Kool Aid-----

My son adores brownies and would love these from KraftRecipes.com----

MakeIt-LoveIt.com has a host of more last minute ideas as well-----

Have fun celebrating Jesus' resurrection this weekend and enjoy the joy your preschoolers find with the holiday! We get to enjoy time with family and eating good food, a nice service on Sunday at church, and lots of candy from our annual family egg hunt with 6 kiddos aged 6 and down!!!

What activities do you have planned or have already completed for Easter weekend?

Easter Egg matching activity

Easter Egg Matching activity! With this weekend holding a fun-filled activity that will probably leave your home with lots of empty eggs by Monday, here is an activity that can put them to creative use this next week! 

Create a scene with construction paper. Trace the shape of the eggs, cut out the halves and then mix them up (i.e. yellow on top and green on the bottom). Then secure the mis-matched eggs onto your background.
Give the preschooler the eggs and ask them to find the matching pairs and place ontop of the correct images on the scene! 

For the younger tot (2 to 3 years), have the eggs already popped in half and ready to match together.  For the older preschooler (4 to 6 years), give them the eggs whole and ask them to pop open and match together by themselves.

Another version is to let the tot create the background scene with you!  Let them practice egg tracing (a hard skill for younger preschoolers) and have them run the gluing of the objects to the background paper.  They can also color or draw on the finished scene for more fun.

I saw a post on one of my favorite blogs (MoneySavingMom.com) that had ideas for reusing plastic eggs with egg cartons and realized that these little objects are perfect for developing finger strength as well as growing sorting skills.  This activity also builds skill sets of: color recognition, finger strength, object manipulation, sorting and grouping as well as skills in patterning and shape recognition.

Enjoy your weekend and may it be filled with the Hope that is found in Jesus Christ!

Toothpick Trace busy bag

(Disclaimer: This activity is suggested for older preschoolers who can safely use toothpicks without hurting themselves.)

Here is an interesting activity that I’ve called Toothpick Trace.  I was reading about different ways to develop hand-eye-coordination in older preschoolers and they suggested using toothpicks to ‘trace’ – have the child poke holes along a pattern line.

As shown above, place a hand towel on a flat surface then a dark colored piece of construction paper and top with a pattern. (Our patterns were hand-traced from favorite puzzle pieces but you could just print off some clipart shapes.)  Once the holes are poked, the dark colored piece of paper can be hung in a window to let the light shine through the new outline!

Wooden clothes pins are placed to secure the top and bottom so my preschooler can focus on his handiwork with the toothpicks.  To reduce the risk of injury, I may go buy some of those fun toothpicks with silly decals at the top (such as little umbrellas) so there is only one sharp end.

Now, this activity does break a rule of the Busy Bag criteria list…all bags are:
non-messy and/or quick clean up, totally independent in use, interesting enough to last 15-30 minutes, and reusable products <—the rule breaker.

Even though this basically fits the concept of other Busy Bags, I wanted to give it a try with my four year old. He doesn’t show interest in writing or drawing or doodling. If he does any of these activities, it’s because I told him that he had to and then the activity only lasts 5 minutes.  This also means he doesn’t have very good skills with using pencils or paint brushes.

So I’m open to any kind of activity for him that builds his skill at “writing”…and using toothpicks is included! 

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Small motor activity: Valentine’s Day card box

My 4-yr old is in preschool and their schedule noted trading V-day cards on Tuesday, Valentine’s day. So I thought it’d be fun to make a box for his cards based off an idea a friend posted on Facebook.

Using an empty soda pop box, we first wrapped red cardstock paper around it and taped it securely. Then I cut out hearts from a pink cardstock and we taped the hearts and the cutouts as well as decorated with puff paint per instructions from the one in-charge (my 4 year old).

{One of my ‘parenting bag of tricks’ is to present scenarios during craft time or playtime as if the child is leading all choices.  I provide narrative situations in which they get to give their decisions with decision-based play. This way, when it comes to chore time or bed time, and it's my turn to tell them what to do, the child is less likely to fight my lead since they’ve been encouraged to lead another part of their day. Many toddler outbursts are due to a need to show control; and what, really, does a youngster get to control in their world?!? I’m a pretty strict parent and know that my kids behave better if they are taught how to lead and when it's appropriate for them to be in-charge.}

Since this became a choo-choo train, the last step was to tape construction paper onto a toilet roll and tape it down and then add fuzzy yarn for our steam stack….and whala!

The craft was very quick and a majority of the time was spent learning how to operate a tape dispenser.  Learning to tear tape is a hard skill at the beginning…not folding the tape or tearing it too short or too long, not touching the teeth/blade, etc. There are so many things to learn in life!

What did your household do for Valentine’s day? Please share in the comments below.  Anyone have a great family tradition that you have done? We’re looking for ideas!