Countdown to Easter Calendar and Activities

Easter always sneaks up on me so quickly when it's in March!! We didn't even get our Easter decorations out until today so our Countdown Calendar we made last year is only going to be for 9 days instead of 12! My daughter (6) was excited to make a new calendar for this year so I came up with a new idea that we put together today.  It would also be a good one to count down to the first day of Spring... but it's been a bit too cold and snowy here for that!

This craft is a great opportunity to practice using scissors and writing numbers.  First, cut out several tulip shapes... I drew the first one by hand and cut it out of card stock. Then I just traced that same shape onto the back of several other colors of card stock to cut out.  My daughter did a few but then got distracted by pulling out the other old decorations so I did the rest. These shapes can actually represent tulips (especially for a Spring countdown!) OR they can be Easter egg shells... which is what ours are going to be!

Meanwhile, have your child cut fringe into a strip of green card stock, measuring 12" x 3-4".  This will be grass! Glue it to the bottom of a separate sheet of 12" x  12" card stock for your calendar.

Have your child write numbers on each shape and arrange them on your calendar. Glue each one down , leaving the top free to form a pocket. 

Once your glue is dry, fill each pocket with a little note to be opened every day leading up to Easter (or the first day of Spring!). Each note could be an inspirational saying, a part of the Easter Story, or my personal favorite: each day can have a different activity to do! Here's a few ideas to get you started:

1. Go visit the Easter Bunny
2. Decorate Easter Eggs
3. Make a special Easter craft
4. Watch a special holiday movie (such as Hop or Rise of the Guardians)
5. Make and send out special Easter cards
6. Have a special bunny meal... in the shape of a bunny or carrots like a bunny eats!
7. Make some homemade Easter decorations
8. Take a walk and look for signs of Spring
9. Have a practice Easter egg hunt

Hopping Easter Bunny Craft

Here is an idea I adapted from an activity called Jumping Cups I found in an old Family Fun magazine. The original instruction can be found online but here is my slightly adjusted version: Hopping Easter Bunny Cups!

Here's what you'll need:

two paper or plastic cups
rubberband
tape
paper
scissors
markers

Begin by cutting the rubber band into two pieces and tie a knot in each side. Draw an Easter Bunny on paper and cut it out. Your kids can color it in however they like! They can also decorate the cups with construction paper, markers, or stickers. We used leftover birthday party cups so they were already pretty colorful!

Next, cut four slits in the rim of one cup, about an inch deep, on opposite sides.  Tape the end of each cut so they don't tear any further. Now slide the rubber bands into those slits so they make an X.

Finally, tape your paper bunny to that same cup, and rest it on top of the plain cup. When you push down on the top cup then let go, your bunny will hop up into the air!

Here is a video of Molly (5) playing with her Hopping Easter Bunny so you can see how high it can go! Even though you might not want your younger children doing the cutting involved in this project, it is still a fun activity for them to play with - Ben (2) loved making his Bunny jump off the kitchen table!

Hand Print Easter Bunny and Spring Flowers

We have been so busy with our Countdown To Easter! We have done so many crafts and activities and made some fun snacks so I really need to catch up with myself!


A while ago we made some Handprint Birthday Cakes and I came up with the idea to make Handprint Easter Bunnies! We used washable finger paints and I helped my kids cover  their palm, middle finger, and ring finger of one hand. For Molly (5) we  used red but added some purple on the ears.  Ben (2) got blue.  After the paint was dry, we stuck on googly eyes and a foam sticker heart for the nose.  Then we glued on craft pom poms to be the bunnies' tails! Finally, I drew on the other details with a permanent marker. I can't wait to make one of these with my kids each year to see how much their hand print has grown!

 

A second project we did with hand prints was to make Spring flowers! This was actually something I did with the five month old twins I babysit during the day as a surprise for their mom.  Make a print of each hand to be your two flowers, and a print of each foot to be the leaves! I used Crayola washable markers on the babies because it can be controlled (unlike finger paints) and it can be cleaned easily with a wet washcloth. Naturally, the foot prints were easier to do with the babies since they kept wanting to ball up their fists! I added on the details with markers and labeled each print with their name and the year. 

 

I came across the hand print and foot print flower on Pinterest! Here is a link to the original blog that posted it as a great Mother's Day gift idea!

Paper Plate Easter Bunny

I found this super cute and easy craft idea on Pinterest! Molly (5) was able to put together this fun Easter bunny in just a few minutes and it makes such a cute decoration. 

First I had her draw a circle with pink marker in the middle of a paper plate, and color it in. When she was finished, I drew a thin line with pencil down the middle so she could cut the paper plate in half. This was a good review of the circle shape and the dome, or half circle, shape.

Next, I let her glue on two cotton balls for the bunny's face on a second plain white paper plate.  She glued on a pink craft pom pom for it's nose, then drew on the eyes and mouth. I simply stapled the first paper plate on to be the ears and we were done!

I love quick crafts like these because it was so easy to set up and clean up! We just had a few minutes before Ben (2) woke up from his nap so it was nice to have a chance to do something special with my daughter in that short time!

Later, I must note, she colored her bunny with purple fur!

Click Here for the original craft post I found on Pinterest!

Egg-Shaped Easter Puzzles

Today we made egg-shaped Easter puzzles! Our project had two parts - first we made them, then we got to play with them!

The other day I was cleaning out our craft drawers and ended up with several pieces of thin cardboard (like what's on the back of a pad of paper!). I decided to hold on to them to reuse them and came up with the idea to make little puzzles!

I flipped through an Easter coloring book and cut out several images in the shape of an Easter egg. I was so happy to even find a picture of an Easter egg to use! Molly (5) used a glue stick to attach the pictures to our cardboard and I cut them out.

She and Ben (2) each got to color a few... and Molly insisted I color the rest (wahoo!).

 

 

When all the eggs were colored, I cut them each into a few pieces with jagged edges to look like cracked egg shells. I made Ben's easy and only did two pieces for him, but Molly's had three or more apiece.  She also cut one of her own!

Easy Homemade Easter Decorations

The first activity in our Countdown to Easter today was to decorate. We finally took down our St. Patrick's Day ornaments from our holiday tree and made it an Easter tree! I also like to put decorations in our big living room windows so I came up with a fun project using construction paper and bleach!

First I cut out several large egg shapes from different colored construction paper.  I poured a small amount of bleach in a little cup and laid out plenty of paper towels! After covering Molly (5) in one of my old t-shirts for protection and cautioning her of the lasting effects of bleach, I let her "paint" on the paper eggs with the bleach using a cotton swab! As the bleach dries, it takes away the color of the paper and leaves behind your design!

Molly really loved this project - we made 20 eggs to tape in our windows! Green paper actually showed up the best and turned a great yellow with the bleach. If you use more bleach and it soaks all the way through the paper, it looks really neat in a window because the light will shine right through it!

Meanwhile, Ben (2), also got to "paint" some paper eggs... only his cup just had water in it. (wink!)

Another fun decoration we made was an Easter garland! I found this idea online here on a neat blog I stumbled upon. It is so simple and fun to make: just snap several plastic Easter eggs onto some yarn or string and hang it up!

Countdown to Easter

I found this idea on Pinterest and I had to make one of our own! This was a very fun project for me and Molly (5), though there were some grown-up parts I needed to do. I am very excited to start the countdown tomorrow for both of my kids, including Ben (2).

Here's what you'll need:

a cookie sheet
paint
magnets
hot glue gun
plastic Easter eggs
permanent marker or stickers
extras as desired

First, paint an old (or inexpensive) cookie sheet completely. We used an old one that was pretty beat up and painted it with satin gloss acrylic paint ... left over from when we painted Molly's room a couple years ago! You can also use spray paint, but having Molly do the painting was part of the fun! While the paint is drying, hot glue magnets to the back of twelve plastic Easter eggs. I found a pack of really neat colors at Target, but a whole pack of 18 eggs in pastels for just a buck at the Dollar Store, so we combined them so there would be twelve different colors.

Have your child apply stickers to the eggs with the numbers 1 through 12. This was a fun counting project and a quick way to add the numbers. Otherwise you can use contact paper or a permanent marker to make your numbers. You can use stickers to add "Countdown to Easter" once your tray is dry... I wrote on mine with permanent markers.

Just for extra decoration I hot-glued a fake carnation on ours, and added a couple of stickers. Add your eggs via magnet and you're done! Oh - one more thing! Don't forget to fill your eggs! You can put fun treats like stickers or candy in them... or what I did was put notes in them with a special activity to do each day. Examples of things I wrote are: "Visit the Easter Bunny"; "Decorate Easter Eggs"; and "Make a special Easter Snack".

If you'd like, you can also include the story of Easter in your countdown eggs. Here is a link to a blog I found that includes instructions:

Easter Story in Eggs

Here is a link to the original blog I got this idea from via Pinterest:

Original Easter Countdown Idea