Bunny Card and Easter Wreath

Our Easter crafts are in full swing! Here are the first two:

For the card, I painted the palm and four fingers of each child's hand. Then I separated the first two fingers from the last two fingers (Star Trek style) and made a print on the front of the card.

I got the idea to make a bunny this way from Fun Handprint Art. I also painted a little bit of pink on the ears. This helped cover up any gaps between the fingers.

And I wrote, "Some bunny loves you..." When it was dry the kids wrote, "ME!" on the inside of the card, decorated it and signed their name.

Then they glued neon wiggle eyes and a button nose to their bunny print. They also drew in whiskers and a mouth.

They turned out so cute! I will send them home later this week so the kids can give them to their parents.

We also made Easter/Spring wreaths. I was just planning on cutting the entire middle out of a paper plate, but then I thought it might be cute to have a little bunny peeking out. So I drew a simple bunny shape (with a marshmallow Peep in mind) and cut around that. We used small paper plates. First the kids decorated the bunny with markers, then they scrunched up tissue paper squares and glued them around the plate.

When dry, I added a little bow at the bottom with some ribbon that was donated to our classroom. It was the perfect touch!

I hope to have more Spring and Easter crafts for you later in the week!

Edible Rainbows

I saw this cute Fruit Loop rainbow craft on How Wee Learn where they threaded cereal on a spaghetti noodle and stuck marshmallows on the ends. I thought it would be neat to use a pipe cleaner so you can bend it into a rainbow shape!

The kids started by putting a marshmallow on one end of the pipe cleaner, then they put the cereal on in any pattern they wanted.

Then I helped them stick another marshmallow on at the end. If there was pipe cleaner left sticking out, I trimmed it off. Some kids chose to group the colors together and some chose to make several rainbow patterns. Others chose to do their own thing!

We found that five of each color or five sets of rainbows was the perfect fit. It gave us enough room left at the end to add the marshmallow. Most of them stood up by themselves. I ended up wrapping them in plastic wrap to keep them clean. I told the kids they could eat their rainbow at home, but I did warn them the marshmallows might be a little fuzzy!

We also made a handprint rainbow as a class to try to get a leprechaun to leave some gold. And I quickly thought up a poem to go with it.

 Dear Leprechaun,
We have been told
That you leave your gold
At the end of a beautiful rainbow.
With our hands, we have made
One that will never fade.
So please leave your pot o' gold below!

While we were outside on the playground, a couple of my wonderful co-workers put a bowl of Rolos at the end of the rainbow and left a little shamrock trail. The kids were SO excited to see the gold when we came back inside!

The bowl actually had more in it, but I forgot to get a picture before the kids took their pieces and we shared with all the teachers. Oops!

Moving Circus Craft

I'm so excited to share this craft with you. It started off as a small, quick art project but then I kept adding to it. I love how it turned out!

First we made the tent from a paper plate. We used the tutorial from Honey Bee Books. I was just going to leave it at that, but then I thought it would be fun if the kids could draw some circus activities inside the tent. I put a piece of white paper behind the tent and realized it was a pretty small area to draw in. Since the tents could not be any bigger, I came up with the moving circus! It took some trial and error, but once I figured out what I wanted to do, it was quick and easy. I took a big piece of white paper and folded it in half lengthwise. (The paper was thin, so I chose to keep it folded rather than just cut it in half. If you use construction paper, it's probably thick enough you could cut two from one large piece.) Then I took a big piece of black construction paper and made two slits that would mostly be hidden behind the sides of the tent. I slid the white paper through the slits. Here is what the back looks like:

On the front, I taped on the tent using one piece of tape at the top and one on each side, making sure it didn't stick to the white paper.

The paper plate naturally stuck out above the paper, which made it very easy to slide the white paper back and forth. To prevent people from pulling the paper all the way out, I wrote a little "STOP!" about an inch in from either side of the white paper.

When you pull the paper to the left or right, you'll see the STOP in the corner of the tent.

Whether that will really prevent people from pulling the paper all the way through, I don't know. But it was the best thing I came up with. When it was time for the kids to color in their circus activities, they started at one STOP and drew to the other STOP. They did this while the paper was in the tent so none of their drawings would be covered up by the top of the tent.

I got a little worried here that maybe this would be too much for them, drawing all the little details, but they did a great job!

And since we used black paper as our background, we decided it would be a night circus and added gold and silver foil star stickers.

Of course, you can see the paper and drawings on the sides of the black paper when it's pulled to the left or right, but there's really no way around that. The kids didn't seem to mind at all! They loved it as much as I did!

 (Love the lion getting ready to jump through the ring of fire!)

And after all that, I decided to add one more thing. I cut out semicircles on the sides of the black paper so the white paper is easier to grab. And I drew a double arrow on each side as well.

When I hang them up next week, I will put this note up so everyone knows how they work:

So, do you love it?!