Play-doh Easter eggs

Supplies Required:

Play-doh
Sequins, glitter, confetti, etc.

Guess where we got the idea for this project?  Yes, you guessed it, Pinterest:  http://www.puttiprapancha.com/2012/03/playdough-easter-eggs.html.  We started out trying to make some Easter eggs with water balloons and embroidery floss dipped in a starch-flour mixture (another Pinterest idea that E's grandmother had so kindly brought us the supplies for) but that activity failed miserably.  E couldn't really help with it because it required too much dexterity for a 3-year-old, and so she quickly got bored.  I hated the project because the floss kept getting stuck in knots, and I have no patience when it comes to untangling things.  So we unfortunately had to abandon that project, and we decided to make Play-doh Easter eggs instead.  Easy and fun!  We made some Play-doh into egg shapes (over time, our Play-doh colors have gotten all mixed up, which made the eggs even prettier) and then decorated them with glitter and some purple and blue flower sequins I had.  But you could use all sorts of things to decorate them.  See the finished product below (they looked much prettier in person...thanks to my lack of photography skills, the picture doesn't do the finished product justice). 

Ball and Car Painting

Supplies required:

Paint
Paper
Balls
Toy Cars
Boxes or buckets or something to put the paper in (optional)

I had seen the idea for this art project in a few different places, and today we decided to try it out.  I thought it was going to be very messy, so I dressed the kids in old clothes and shoes and took them outside to do it.  It didn't turn out to be very messy at all, although if my son W had been interested in the project (he was more interested in playing basketball and playing with one of the bouncy balls we used for the project) it would have probably become a huge mess.

For this project, we found a couple of shallow boxes from Amazon that I had already cut the flaps off of to make into "drawers" for our coffee shop.  We also used a couple of plastic Easter baskets.   You could use a lot of different kinds of containers, or you could do this project without any containers at all.  I put paper in the bottom of the boxes and in the bottom of the Easter baskets (I cut the Easter basket paper into circles so it would fit.) 

For the "ball" paintings, I scattered a few drops of paint on the paper (you don't need a lot) that was in the Easter basket, then had E put the ball in there.  She then shook the basket around to make the ball roll all across the paper in the paint.  It was fun and easy.  She then wanted to try to do the ball painting in the Amazon rectangular boxes, and that worked well too. 

For the "car" paintings, we used a piece of paper in the Amazon rectangular boxes. I put some paint on a paper plate and then had E roll the car in the paint to get the wheels covered.  She then "drove" the car around on the paper.  This was a lot of fun too!  You could even put the paint right on the paper like I did for the ball painting if you wanted to cut down on the mess. 

This was  lot of fun (minus the complete meltdown my son had when we initially got out the bouncy balls for this project--he wanted to play with them, but they were small enough to choke on, so I couldn't let him play with them while I was still gathering all the things I needed.)  I thought my son W would be very interested in this project, but he could have cared less.  He was just excited to be able to play with the bouncy ball once we got outside.

E doing the ball painting:

E's ball painting in the Easter basket (I probably put in a little too much paint--and if you use black paint, it obviously has a tendency to make everything gray):

My ball painting:

E's ball painting in the box:

My car painting:

E's car painting:

Tie-Dye Easter eggs

Supplies Required:

Dot markers (regular markers might work too):  http://www.amazon.com/Do-A-Dot-Rainbow-Art-Set/dp/B00004W3Y4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333917538&sr=8-1
Coffee filters
Scissors

I got this holiday craft idea from Pinterest:  http://www.momto2poshlildivas.com/2012/03/faux-tie-dye-coffee-filter-easter-eggs.html.  We bought dot markers for this activity, so I'm not sure if it would work with regular markers (it would definitely take longer to cover the whole filter, since there isn't as much surface area on a regular marker).  But we plan to use our dot markers again.  Specifically, I plan on printing out some "do-a-dot" letters for our car trip to the beach this summer.  Here's a link to pdfs you can download for the alphabet activity:  http://totschool.shannons.org/?page_id=2360

E and I had a lot of fun making these, and it's a super easy project.  My husband even had to make one too after he saw us making them.  If you knew my husband, you would know what a plug for the activity that is!  Basically, you just take a coffee filter, cut it into an egg shape, fold it in half once, then fold it as many other times as you want to (differnet folds will make different designs).  You then use the dot markers to make dots on the filters.  (Hold the marker there for a few seconds to make sure it bleeds through all of the folded layers.)  Then, wait for it to dry (although we were too impatient to wait for it to dry) and open up the "egg." 

We taped ours to our front window, and they looked really pretty in the sunlight (excuse the blue painter's tape we used--we were all out of regular masking tape....would have looked better if the tape hadn't shown through them!)

Glitter pinecones

Supplies required:
pinecones
glitter (white or silver work especially well, but any color will do)
glue
white paint
paint brushes
paper bag(s) (optional)

Last weekend E and I made glitter pinecones.  Luckily, we have a forest in our own front yard, so we were able to collect plenty of pinecones for this project.  (I'm pretty sure we could have collected enough pinecones for an entire school to do this project.)  Although the project was a little messy, it was easy, fun, and now we have beautiful pine cones to display in a bowl on our dining room table.

Once we collected the pinecones, we mixed together white paint and glue (equal parts of each, but I don't think it matters that much as long as you have enough glue) and then we used paintbrushes to brush the mixture onto the pine cones.  You can't spend too long painting, or the paint and glue will dry and you won't be able to put the glitter on.  We each painted one pine cone at a time, and then we applied the glitter.  I had gotten a variety package of different colors of glitter, so we used white, red, and two different kinds of silver.  I dumped each color of glitter in its own small paper lunch bag.  When a pinecone was ready, we dropped it in the bag and then shook it around to get it coated in the glitter.  We then took it out and set it on a newspaper to dry and started painting a new pinecone. 

E loved this project, and so did I.  The pictures definitely don't do the pinecones justice.  They are much more sparkly in person.

This was us painting the pinecones before we put the glitter on:

And this is the finished product (again, this doesn't adequately capture the pinecones at all):

Animal Habitat

Supplies required:
Cardboard box or some other container for the habitat
Modeling clay (we used Crayola's "Model Magic" that comes in different colors)
Items collected from nature (sticks, small branches, leaves, pinecones, etc.)
Miniature toy animals (we used animals you can find at craft stores in tubes.  Here is a link to an example on Amazon.  This wasn't the exact brand we got although the mix of the animals in this one is exactly what I was looking for but couldn't find at Michael's):  http://www.amazon.com/River-Otter-Adventure-Nature-playset/dp/B0038RQ57O/ref=acc_glance_t_ai_ps_t_3

Since we knew we were going to be getting a lot of rain on Labor Day and would need a fun indoor activity, E and I went out in our yard on Sunday to collect some things to make an animal habitat.  Although we live in a city, our neighborhood is very woodsy. We have tons of trees in our front yard (including both evergreen and decidiuous), so we have a never-ending supply of leaves, twigs, pinecones, pine needles, etc.  We collected pinecones, pine needles, leaves, rocks, and small stems/branches/twigs. 

On Monday, I searched in our garage for the perfect box for the animal habitat.  I found a shoebox that was just deep enough to keep the items contained, but wasn't so deep that E wouldn't be able to reach in it easily to set things up.  Because of how the box made, I was able to cut it so that it only had 3 sides, making it easy for E to reach in and build the habitat. 

We started off using modeling clay (we used Crayola's Model Magic and LOVED it) to make the ground and to make a pond.  Then we added some of the things we had collected in the yard.  We made trees by taking some of the small branches and putting clay around the bottom of them.  We made a bed of pine needles for the animals.  I made a shelter for the animals by finding four twigs of about the same size, mounting them in clay to make them stand up, and placing a huge leaf on top of them to make a roof.  Other than doing that and helping E with the trees, I mainly let her decide what she wanted to do with it. 

E had a ton of fun making the habitat, and when she decided it was done, I got out the miniature animals.  I got out a couple from a zoo babies animal tube (they can be found at craft stores like Michael's) that we already had for car trips, and also got out a pets animal tube that E's grandmother had been nice enough to get for her on Sunday.  Any small toy animals will work, however.  If you are talented (I am most decidedly not!) you can even make the animals out of the modeling clay and that would save money if you don't already have toy animals.  Below are pictures of the tube of animals and the animals placed in the habitat. 

I loved this activity:  it involved some outdoor time but was a good rainy day activity (as far as the actual creating of the habitat), it wasn't very messy, E had a lot of fun both creating and playing with the habitat, and I could just let her create whatever her imagination could come up with.