We’ve had a fabulous Easter holiday and actually achieved most of the things we set out to, even though at one point or another we’ve all had coughs and colds!
The first crafty activity we tried was making Easter cards for friends and family.
I started by taping some big paper to the little ikea ‘lack’ table we have in the kitchen, then I drew a few wavy lines on in purple, green and yellow to give a suggestion of Easter egg patterns. – this was all while little man was busily eating yoghurt and ‘barnar’ (banana) safely strapped in his high chair and not interfering!
Next, once he was all ready to get messy, we chose some paint ( I had already only got out the colours I wanted him to use, lilac, yellow, green and orange). In the last few weeks his spoken language has really taken off so it has been lovely doing different things with him and hearing him try out new words for the first time! I asked him what colour he would like and where I should put it, and he replied each time with ‘g-ee-n dere’ (green there) etc!
Then when we had a good few splotches of paint on the paper I let him play with his brushes, fingers and rollers. I did some too. When the paper and we were both suitably covered in paint, he seemed satisfied so we finished, washed our hands and left it to dry.
Later on when the paint had dried, I cut an egg shaped template out of card. Then I drew round it on the most interesting and colourful parts of the paper. Bigger children could do this themselves. I cut the egg shapes out while he was having a snack in the afternoon, and we chattered about cutting with scissors, why you need to be careful, and the shapes I was making etc.
Finally he helped me use a glue stick to attach the eggs to some coloured blank cards I had lying around.
Next up were Mary Berry’s Easter biscuits. We love cooking together. Mixing, measuring and rolling are such brilliant things to do with a toddler. He was very interested in mixing up the ingredients – although he did try to eat most of the raisins!
Unfortunately we did have a bit of a problem in the cooking; little man was just getting ready for his nap so I had to choose whether to take them out of the oven a little early or risk them getting burnt while I got him off to sleep. I took them out a few minutes early and they looked OK, but once they had cooled they were still a bit soft. They were tasty nonetheless but next time I will make sure I plan the baking time better!
The second cooking activity we tried was much more successful! Making Easter nests is such a brilliant simple task that we were able to really enjoy all of it with no stresses at all. We started by scrunching up the shredded wheat in a bowl. Once little man saw what I was doing he took over and really enjoyed using his hands (washed of course) he pulled some fantastic faces while he was doing it too – great ‘characteristics of effective learning – playing and exploring’ evidence!
When they were all thoroughly crunched and crumbled, I melted the chocolate in the microwave (little man was not impressed with this – he wanted to eat it all) then we mixed it into the bowl. Once it was well and truly coated we scooped it into the cupcake cases together. He enjoyed putting the cases in the holed in the muffin tin too. Next I asked him to put the mini eggs onto each nest – which he did really well although he was a bit confused by the fact that these eggs were hard and he couldn’t crack them. Finally we put them into the fridge to set. Easy and yummy!
The last activity we did was potato printing to make Easter wrapping paper. We both really enjoyed this activity – perhaps because we were out in the garden and it was a sunny Spring morning. I prepared the potatoes while little man was busy doing something else, then I spread out some Easter-y colours on plastic picnic plates that we use for paint now. Top tip for printing – you need the paint to coat the potato thinly if you want to be able to see the patterns. If the paint is too thick, the splodges will squish all over the design.
As you can see he got really stuck in, exploring the colours and different mark making techniques. I also had fun filling in the gaps and making sure all the paper was covered. We left the paper to dry in the sun and then had even more fun washing the plates and our hands in a washing up bowl of bubbly water in the garden too. Needless to say – when we were finished we both needed to get changed!
The only thing we didn’t get around to doing was painting the polystyrene eggs. I have squirreled these away for next year though! All in all it has been a brilliant Easter holiday and I am really pleased that we had so much messy fun!
I hope you all had a lovely holiday too. What did you get up to?
I’ve had a busy time lately working and painting as well as spending as much time playing with my little man as possible. Now, however I am on my Easter holidays so have a bit of a chance to sit back and think about some more really fun things to do. And with Easter weekend coming I thought I would make one of my bespoke banners for us to keep; a happy Easter banner with lots of spring flowers and animals decorating it. Here’s the design sketch I did and what I have done so far:
Gemma's Adventures in Life and Art 