Easter Activities

Here are a couple art projects I did with my toddler class but woul also be good for primary ages.

1. Paper Plate Bunnies-Fold a regular sized paper plate in half. Make two large ears and two inner ear pieces, a nose, and two circular cheeks. We did the eyes and mouth with marker. Glue the nose and cheeks on one side of the plate. Draw other facial features in. Glue the ears on by cutting two slits in the fold of the plate and inserting the ears in. The bunny should be able to stand up since it is folded and it came out cute.

2. Tissue Paper Eggs-glue tissue paper squares onto a large white construction paper egg.

3. Chalk Eggs-Make glue lines on a large white paper egg and let dry. Afterwards use colored chalk to color in between the glue lines. Use a tissue or hand to wipe any excess chalk powder off.

For our day, we will be:

1 - Rolling eggs - my kids will be setting up simple ramps. Maybe yours would enjoy rolling the eggs with their nose? Or building simple cars to carry the eggs down a ramp. Or maybe rolling the eggs through an obstacle course?

2 - Sidewalk chalk - We're drawing with egg shaped sidewalk chalk. You can have them illustrate a story you read or even do word puzzles.

3 - Egg toss - You can also do egg relays where they race with the eggs on a spoon.

Some things I've used in the past are:

1 - Egg drop - the kids have to build something to keep the egg from breaking when it is dropped.

2 - Decorating eggs - You can use real or paper eggs and let them get very creative. Use paints, glitter collage materials, etc. Have a contest.

3 - Popular characters - Give each child a large bunny or egg cut-out and have them decorate it like their favorite person. We had the children do this at home and bring them in. This was several years ago, but my favorites included the Barbara Bush Bunny (complete with pearls), Michael Jordan Bunny, and Kristi Yamma-bunny (from our ice-skating fan). They also shared information about their bunny with the class.

4 - You can also do lots of Easter related academic tasks. Put words or story starters in plastic eggs in an Easter Basket. Let the kids take turns choosing. If you use story starters, the kids write and illustrate the stories. Let them work together. If you choose words, start telling the class a story. After about three sentences, pull an egg, open it, read the word aloud, and then tell another sentence in the story using that word. Let the class continue the story as they take turns drawing eggs. The stories get weird sometimes, but the kids love it. You can also do some manipulative math activities based on Easter eggs.

I'm trying to come up with an idea also.
I have seen classes that have made stained glass pictures, which they color with crayons, then laminate. Maybe you could make HUGE Eggs.
Or decorate the picture with sequens,beads, and various jewels, and tape them to a (window?)or purchase styrofoam eggs from craft stores, and put the jewels, etc. on them. Then you could hang them from your ceiling with ribbon. Would be pretty. Used to buy leggs panty hose in egg containers, and paint them.
I have had my younger classes make bunnies from 2 paper plates. One plate is the face, the other cut in half to make ears. Staple ears to plate, and make a bunny face.
My boys made bunny face paper bags in pre-school. Take a small lunch sack, cut top to form ears,cut small triangular section on each side to form a face, decorate front as face, put cotton ball on back for tail.
Good luck.

We have Eggstra Day Activities. One of our favorites is turning the egg to rubber. Fill a glass container is vinegar, place a raw egg in. Place it where all the students can see it, should be able to see bubbles start to form all around it, this is the acid in the vinegar reacting with the calcium in the egg shell. The next day have the students discuss the changes. Pour off the vinegar and let them gently touch the egg, how does it feel now?

Have parents send plastic eggs. Before the big day
type up "Eggstra Eggciting Fortunes" one per egg. Put in the egg and tape it shut, hide around the room and let the students hunt for them on your special day. Suggestions for fortunes, "Luck has smiled on you today, This is a free homework pass." "5 minutes of free reading" etc.

-Pin the tail on the bunny (use cotton balls for the tails, draw your own rabbit)
-Easter egg decorating contest(real or paper egg)
-Jelly bean sort and graph
-Mystery Egg- Fill plastic eggs with different items (coins, candy, paper clips, sand, rice, ect
Students ask yes and no questions to find out what is inside of it.
-How many words can you make out of "Easter Egg Hunt" Cut out the letters and see which group can come up with the most words in 10 minutes.
-Egg Toss-Same as the balloon toss except with plastic eggs or real eggs (depends on your preference)
-Egg spoon relay
-Scrambled Eggs--put a basket of plastic eggs that are broken apart. On one side put a brainteaser question and the answer on the bottom half. They have to match to get the answers. They usually end up telling everyone the jokes.
-School Scavenger Hunt-When the students get back from lunch, specials, or recess have a large plastic egg with a clue in it leading to somewhere in the room or around the school. Each time they find a clue. End up at the classroom where a parent has set of the party.
-decorate Easter cookies
-make natural dyes for the eggs out of vegetables and fruit (there are websites for this).

In one of my classes, a teacher wrote "at" on one side of the egg and put the letters b,c,h,s,m, etc on the other half of the egg. The children then twist the egg to make words. Good for rhyming, etc. You can do it for other word endings as well!

How about having clues leading to the eggs? You could put the kids into groups (by reading level?) and have each group follow their clues (separated by colors?) to their eggs. This way they will need to read and follow instructions to find the prize. You'll be creating a learning activity, while maintaining the 'fun' of the hunt.

Another idea...for the mixed up WWW, why not put the words on easter egg templates. Have children collect all four pieces, decorate them, and put them back together like a puzzle?

Just a few ideas off hte top of my head. I forgot that Easter is coming so quickly!!!

Michele

Something one of my students said she did before was to decorate a plastic Easter egg to look like the main character of a book. They could do that together and have a ball with it. Just have plenty of art supplies on-hand. If you wanted something more elaborate, you could make the Easter basket the "setting" and decorate that as well. They would make nice displays in the library.

Here are some ideas I have done in the past that the kids have really enjoyed.

1. Cut out large egg shape out of white construction paper or tag board. Mix tempera paint to be really runny. Give each child a straw and they dip into the paint and then blow the paint across the paper. THe effect is really neat.

2. Make chicks out of pine cones. Use fiber fill to push into the pine cone. THen glue on face features. Glue Easter grass on a small paper plate and glue the chick on the grass. This is cute but does cost a bit of money.

I'm sure there are more, I'll have to think.

I give my students a handful of jelly beans and have them graph them by color. I attached a worksheet with questions related to the graph on the K-3 board under the post Attach Something. Hope that helps!

My kids just made the cutest eggs! I cut eggs shapes (about half-sheet size) out of cardstock. Then I gave the kids a wide selection of tissue paper (gift wrapping kind). They tore (no scissors allowed for this project) the tissue paper into small squares and glued them to the egg. They all turned out super, super cute! I am so happy with them. The kids loved them too, because it gave them a lot of creative freedom.

I just made a new Spring BB, "Best in the Nest". I'm going to laminate the eggs and then add them to the nest.

I am going to have my students make a bunny basket from their lunch milk cartons. I found one in my mother in laws basement that someone had made. The carton is turned on it's side so that the top where the spout is, will become the bunnies face. With the carton laying on it's side cut an opening in what will be the bunnies back. Do not cut all of the carton off. Leave the end attached next to the pour spout, so that a flap will pop up toward the top/spout of the carton. Cut the flap to form ears. It is then covered with cotton balls. Use pipe cleaners for whiskers, and add jelly beans for eyes. Then Easter grass, and candy can be placed inside your bunny. Hoppy Easter!

For each child, collect empty (washed out) milk gallon jugs. Then you or an adult volunteer will need to cut the top 1/4 of jug off. Start behind the opening the milk flows through and cut down to the front middle. The best part is the children will use the original milk jug handle to hold the basket by. The children can glue bunny ears on each side of the handle. On the face of the carton glue two eyes, nose and whiskers. Put some easter grass in the inside and you have a study basket to take on the hunt. To keep the bunny features on I would staple them after the children have glue the ears, etc. School glue does not stay on plastic well. You could also try hot glue.
Happy Easter!:o

My second graders made a cute little "mini Easter basket" from an envelope. I get colored envelopes from the drug store in their card displays they always have leftovers.

The student licks and seals the envelope, then they turn it up so it is in fromt of them on the desk vertically. You draw ears on the envelope from the top corner about halfway down on either side, You use the side folded part ofthe envelope for the putsdie part of the ear. Then cut along your lines so that the envelope will now open like a little basket. Then they can draw on face and whiskers. I had my kids cut eyes and nose and pink ear insides from construction paper to glue on. These were so cute. Stufff a little easter grass inside the bunny's head. I had my kids cut out egg shapes from cardstock for parents. They write on them, "Good for one hug", "Good for one bedtime story,"(The child must read a story to the parent), etc. I wish I had a picture of one. It would be self explanatory.

We use 2 liter soda bottles that I have cut the bottom off of (about 7 inches or so to make the basket part). From the part that I am going to throw away, I cut a handle about an inch and half wide. (If you don't want to use the soda bottle for the handles, pipe cleaners work well for that, too.) Then I punch holes in both the basket and handle so that I can connect the handle to the basket. I use either pipe cleaners or paper fasteners to connect the handles. Then the children use squares of tissue paper in different pastel colors to modpodge to their basket. I fill them with Easter grass when they dry and they're ready to go. They turn out so cute!

They sound odd, but they turn out lovely, and require so little. I ask parents to donate the colored pink and blue kleenexes. You need about 8 boxes for your class. I then blow up large balloons. The students then "paper mache" the kleenex onto the balloons using an equal mixture of glue to water. You have to be sure to keep the kleenexes open flat as you plaster them to the balloons, and it has to be about three kleexes thick. We leave about 3-4 in. at the top of the balloon open. The balloons must dry 3-4 days, then pop balloons, and you have lovely large "eggs" to put their treats in.

P.S. Okay, I just reread your original post, and these baskets don't have handles. They may not be appropriate for gathering eggs; they're more delicate than that, sorry.

Surprisingly, this really works! Try it yourself before doing it with the class, and you'll be an expert. Purchase some large sized decorative paper plates, suitable for spring/easter. This year mine have mulitcolored balloons on them. I've had tulips once and easter eggs too. Work next to a sink half full of water. You also need large elastic bands and some containers (one per child) about the size of the basket you want to make. I use large margerine containers from my math centre, and borrow if I don't have enough.

Have the child put his name on the back of the plate first. Then he lowers the plate into the water. It gets soft very quickly. He brings it out and shapes it over the upside down container, decorative side out. A parent or older student then wraps a strong elastic band around the plate to hold it there to dry. If the plate is big enough, you can carefully ruffle the edges a little, below the elastic.

The baskets will be dry and pretty strong the next day. Remove them from the margerine container. I let the kids make a handle of several colored strips of colored tag, layered for effect, and for strength. I staple the handle on, but it isn't easy over the ruffle. You might want a slit to weave it into on the basket's side, and tape with fibre tape. Then we add a layer of colorful easter grass and before they take it home, I'll add a few eggs and jelly beans. Some of these baskets have lasted for years.

Hope this helps