Spring Display

I'm not sure who had more fun creating our spring display, I know one thing though, I love walking into the kitchen every morning to be greeted by this very cheerful display.

What a better way to create a pretty rainbow but with hand prints.

We used lollipop sticks to create some pretty dragon flies

 Our spring pictures came from twinkl.

I used large colourful lollipops for the dragonflies, which I glued together the night before.

 First they stuck some eyes on them.

Then let the children enjoy sticking lots of little gems on them to decorate.

We had been given a ladybird making kit, which comprised of a polystyrene shape for the body, which they covered in glue and tissue paper.

Painted some black spots on them.

 Stuck a face on and some eys and then I did the fiddly bit with the pipe cleaner, 2 very cute ladybirds.

Printing Flowers

Had fun printing, using the inners of kitchen rolls,

                         

cut several slits in one end of the roll and fan them out, this when covered in paint produces the flower print, I then had strips of cardboard to use as the stems and leaves.

                         

   

                         

                         

                         

                       

                       

                     

Now these next to pictures, were created by my little ones but it has given me a lovely idea, for Chinese New Year, as I don't know about anyone else but as I was taking these photos I was getting an impression of dragons.

Spring

Our planning and some of the activities we enjoyed for our spring theme.


Some of the books we enjoyed. we enjoyed looking at and talking about the pictures in Spring by Gerda Muller, I think our favourite story is Ferdie's springtime Blossom.

I love the coming of spring, watching the natural world around us waking up but I especially love blossom, there is something particularly beautiful when trees produce their flowers. This year the children and I took several walks and we photographed their favourite trees.

The children love standing under this tree, especially if there is a breeze that means the blossom gently falls to the ground. One of my little ones calls this "blossom snow", which I thought was beautiful phrase and describes the feelings and excitement the children had, as they stood under the tree as it snowed.

Having spent time looking at the different colours etc of blossom, I thought it would be a lovely idea to use finger paints to recreate the blossom. G and I painted the tree trunk and branches and then the children choose the colours and mixed some of the pinks and whites to get different shades of pink. They had great fun painting and talking about the different trees they saw.

The older ones had fun trying to build nests, we had one little tiny nest made with dried grass and moss and another interesting on made out of leaves and sticks.

 

Our sensory rice garden can be found here

Another idea to add to my spring planning for next year printing flowers using the inner rolls of kitchen rolls etc, very effective.

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.