Easter

We enjoyed making these stain glass Easter eggs and yes I did actually enjoy cutting out all shapes before the children arrived! We then used kite paper, which is easier to use and glue as it has a waxy finish but tissue paper would work fine.

Made and decorated some gingerbread biscuits.

At Christmas we had some Christmas shaped scratch art that the children loved doing so when I found these Easter shapes from Crafty Crocodiles I had to get them for them and yes they loved doing them.

Easter cards

With my own children we made a stained glass cross, sticking lots of pieces of kite paper together and then outlining it with black paper.

 I used this art project with my own children to tell the story of Easter, which was a beautiful way to explain each stage of the Easter story.

We decorated eggs, instead of painting them we used these pens ok, they are not waterproof but they did colour well and I look forward to seeing how they work on wood etc.

Easter crafts wouldn't be complete without making chocolate rice krispies cakes

and hot cross buns!

Hot Cross Bun

makes 12

250g strong white flour

250g strong wholemeal flour

1tsp mixed spices

1tsp cinnamon

1 tsp dried yeast

50g caster sugar

150g to 200g dried fruit (depending on how fruity you like your buns)

50g butter

250ml milk

1 egg, beaten

Mix all the flours, spices, sugar and yeast together, rub in butter, add dried fruit and then mix in egg and milk, then knead for about 10 minutes, cover and leave to double in size.

Once doubled in size, divide dough into 12 pieces and shape, cover and leave to rise again. You can then cut a cross in the top of the buns or pipe a cross.

                                                            For Piped Cross

50g plain flour

1tsp sunflower oil

1 tbsp icing sugar

Mix all ingredients together and then pipe a cross onto each bun.

Bake for 15 minutes at Gas mark 7

and of course we had our traditional Easter egg hunt. We have a tradition of hiding any Easter presents the children receive around the house so on Easter Sunday they have an Easter egg hunt with a difference, which they still enjoy.

Mother's Day

I've seen lots of variations of this activity used to produce Father's and Mother's day pictures. I created a flower picture using masking tape. Then the children choose what colours they wanted and set about painting over the canvas.

When the paint was nearly dry, I peeled of the masking tape to reveal their pictures.

The little rabbit

My littleones, have developed a real interest in rabbits, especially our pet rabbit, they have also collected up a few of the schleich rabbits and hutch too, I really do like the schleich toys, they are beautiful. If you are after detail planning to the EYFS, please do scroll to the bottom of this post to find it.

 I created a story box to go with The Little rabbit story, this gives the children a chance to recreate the story and printed of these cute Printables for the little rabbit story box. They love to match up the pictures to the toys in the box.

They expanded their own play by adding a couple of arches from our rainbow to make a run for the rabbits and a horse.

We made some very cute (even if I do say myself) cardboard roll rabbits.

Fun in the kitchen making some home made crackers.

                                                          Home Made Cracker Recipe

400g plain flour

                                                                     2.5ml salt

                                                                     225ml water

Mix all the ingredients together and then knead well on a floured worktop for 10 minutes.

Roll out the dough, the thinner the better and use cutters to cut out your chosen shape.

Place on a baking tray and prick all over.

Bake at Gas 4 for 8 to 10 minutes or until a little crispy around the edges.

They store well in an air tight container and my after schoolers love these as a snack.

We used a cardboard box to make a hutch for the larger toy rabbits that we have, note to self, next time make sure I have a box big enough for at least one child to get into as they wanted a hutch for themselves to play in.

Fun painting and sticking to make some rabbit pictures, can you spot the hungry rabbit eating some grass? As we made these pictures we talked about what rabbits like to eat and how to keep them healthy.

Butterfly printing, I love the look on the children's faces after they open up their paper to reveal their butterfly print, it's brilliant.

Then a game of matching rabbits, not necessarily as easy as it looks. Found these Rabbit matching game. I will also use this game as part of our Easter activites.

New Blocks!

I treated us to some new blocks and had a lovely time exploring them and added some duplo figures too. The blocks are lovely, light weight, so very easy for little one to pick up and use and even though they are irregular in shape they still fit together beautifully. It was lovely to watch them pick up 2 blocks and try and manipulate them in different ways to see how they can fit together, how to balance them if they are building them a tower, lining them up in different patterns etc

I also got this lovely cave too.