Relief Painting Easter Art

We had fun with this easy {little project} for teaching about relief painting. 

 

To make {this little project}, we used:

paint in bottle caps-one color per cap

painter's tape

fancy scissors

printed egg paper

stickers (foam work well)

The painter's tape with the fancy scissors helped define the space for each color.

Then the kids just picked their stickers and added one color of paint for each section.

 

After the paint dried we removed the painter's tape and foam stickers:

 

 

They were surprised to find all that white space still there. 

What a nice {little} surprise!

 

Easter Hand Stitching {From the Invention Box}

 

{This Little Project} is courtesy our Invention Box.  We've done some stitching like this before.  But this time we had an egg design in mind as we practiced our sewing skills.

 

Chenille stems make great kid-friendly "needles" for sewing.  

Just knot the yarn to the looped stem on the back side and the kids don't have to worry about it slipping from the "eye" of the needle.

 

I used an avocado bag for Jay's stitching and a clementine box wrapper for Kay's.  

Both worked really well.  

 

Easy and fun--to see the patterns through the materials.

 

 

Easter Egg Creatures

 
 
Easter time brings out the fun you can have with a {little} egg.

To make {this little project} you need:

eggs shells {insides have been removed)

googly eyes

chenille stems

craft foam

hot glue gun

Designing is the fun part!

These designs are courtesy the talented: Dallin; Jay's art teacher:

Octopus, and Fish:

  

Alien Egg:

  

Shark and octopus:

 

I love what a few {little} googly eyes can do for these! 

Displaying them was a lot of fun--not your usual Easter egg creatures, lol!

Little Man Ties {easy remake}

If you like to dress your {little} man up

{this little project} is for you!

I know there are a ton of DIY tie ideas out there for little boys.   

But they still require making the tie. 

These {little} ties are WAY EASIER!

 

These {little} man ties would be perfect for Easter, dressing up like Dad on Father's Day, etc.  

I was wandering through a consignment shop and happened upon a basket of ties. 

I thought: I can chop the end off to shorten this tie and be done with it!

If you put a man's tie on a boy the tail is too long right?  Well, so cut it off and you have your tie.  Done!  I'm pretty sure that most of our hubbys have ties that aren't their favorite anymore.  So now you can give them a new life!

So I bought them ($1 each), had my husband tie a knot in them closer to the front end, adjusted the size for my little Jay to wear, CHOPPED the end off, and hemmed it.

easy!

 

To make these ties {little} boy friendly, we just leave the ties tied.  He just slips them on and tightens them up.  And loosens them when taking them off.  Easy.

Jay was 5 years old when I made these for him and they will last for a long time since they adjust just like Daddy's ties do!

And what do you think I'm going to do with the tails?  I think I'll sew them onto Baby M's shirt to make my two {little} boys match:)

There you go!  A handsome {little} man tie. 

 

Have fun dressing your {little} man up!

He Is Risen and More Bible Videos

Our family is looking forward to witnessing my sweet {little} niece's baby blessing on Easter Sunday.
This Easter has been a little different for us.  We're usually at home, not in a hotel room at Easter time.
But even on the road, in our family scripture time we've been able to talk with our kids about Easter and what it really means.As Jay told me yesterday, "It isn't anything about eggs and bunnies.  It's about Jesus!"

Tonight we watched He Is Risen online with our kids about what Easter is all about right in our hotel room.  And it didn't matter that we are here instead of home.  
The powerful message that He is Risen is true everywhere.

I'm always amazed at how the {littlest} among us know.
For instance, here is Ellie's (2-year-old) narration during the short He Is Risen movie:
At the start: "Mommy!  Daddy!  Happy!  Jesus!"
During the Last Supper: "Light!"
While Jesus is being whipped: "Oh no!"
When the crown of thorns is placed on Jesus' head: "Jesus owie!"
When they drove nails through Jesus' hands and feet: "Jesus owie.  Mommy Daddy owie."
When Jesus is at the tomb, after the 3rd day when he is resurrected: "Jesus!"
Out of the mouth of babes.
I picked up this book a couple of weeks ago and have really enjoyed it and recommend it.
 God So Loved the World: The Final Days of the Savior's Life 
Besides going through each day or Holy Week with scriptures, maps and insights, The author points out that Gorden B. Hinckley said, "There would be no Christmas if there had not been Easter."  I don't think we often think of the events in that order.  Christmas seems to get so much more attention, and yet we celebrate the birth of baby Jesus because His atonement and resurrection means so much to mankind.
A {little} something I've been thinking on this year.  Somehow, when your regular traditions are thrown up the air, you start to really think about those traditions a {little} more ;)
For more fabulous bible videos, see biblevideos.org
Wishing you a very Happy Easter!

Rice Krispies filled Easter Egg Treats {surprise!}

Filling plastic eggs with jelly beans and candy is so... predictable.


Want to give them a happy {little} surprise instead?

Surprise!


My kids LOVE these rice krispie filled easter egg treats!

{this Little Project} is easy to make and festive too!

Follow the instructions on the package to make rice krispie treats but instead of putting them in a pan, you will form small egg shapes instead.


{little project tip}: rub some butter on your hands. It makes shaping them soooo much easier!

Then check to make sure the treat will fit into your plastic eggs and go ahead and roll it in sprinkles!

Then close them up and wait.  


No one will suspect, so it's a fun {little} surprise when they are opened!

And yes, the grown-up version of {this little project} means I dip them in chocolate ;)


It's the {little} things, right?

BONUS! {this little project} is kid-friendly to make 
(especially if you melt the marshmallows and butter in the microwave, like I do!)

Mapping An Easter Egg Hunt

It's that time of the year when I get a {little} sneaky and use 

our plastic Easter eggs to have a {little} extra fun learning.

My son Jay loves maps. He's pretty good at reading them so 

the other day we bought a compass for him at the store to try out.  

All the way home he told me which direction I was driving. 

It was a lot of fun!  

So instead of the usual Easter egg hunt, I put together a 

Direction egg hunt to help him practice learning to follow 

directions and direct himself using north, south, east, and west 

with his compass.

Kay isn't quite ready for the compass so her egg hunt was 

about counting her steps and practicing left and right.  

With Easter coming up and plastic eggs everywhere, 

I thought I would share {this little} resources with you 

as a fun way to practice learning to move in the right direction.

Since we were doing 2 different egg hunts, we have the boy eggs with directions for using the compass in them to find them all:
   
And the girl eggs to practice counting steps and turning right and left.

The great thing about using colored eggs is that when you hide 

them you can note which color that the kids will find first, 

second, etc.--just in case they get confused at some point 

and need to backtrack. Re-tracing their steps is all part of 

learning which way to go.

For each egg I put in a paper in that describes:

the type of movement (walking forward/backward, hop, etc.)

the direction of the movement (right/left, or north/south, etc.)

Here are some fill-in the blank papers I used:

Compass Egg Hunt Directions

You can fill in the blanks to fit where you hide your eggs.
When you are done, it would be fun to draw a map of where your hunt took you, looking at the clues you used to find the eggs.
I also used {this little} activity to talk about how important it is to follow directions to get where they are going and not get lost.  There are a lot of applications for teaching {this little} lesson.  
Of course learning about which direction is which is an important {little} lesson too :)

p.s. I am a guest writer at abcand123learning.com and shared some fun songs and musical activities to go along with {this little project} {here}.

Butterfly Snack (craft!)

Some of my favorite {little} projects are the ones we get to eat!
This past week we've been enjoying such warm spring weather and we put together a {little} butterfly snack to go with our butterfly finger puppets.
This a photo of the one that Kay made:

To make {this little project} start by cutting 2 circle crackers cut in half for the wings(use a sawing motion to cut for best results)
cover the crackers with peanut butter (you could use marshmallow spread if you have an allergy) 
and then add rainbow chocolate covered sunflower seeds to the "wings" 
The "caterpillar body" in the middle is a gummy worm, of course!
 Jay decided to watch the praying mantis life cycle this year, instead of the butterflies we did last year. And good news!  Our praying mantis egg (and the fruit flies to feed the baby mantises) arrived in the mail today!  
We have one excited little boy!  I'll have to let you know how {this little} science experiment turns out.  
I have a feeling we won't be making a look-a-like snack for them though ;)

Happy 100th Day of the Year!

We've been gearing up this week to celebrate the 100th day of the year-today! It's a great excuse to LEARN and have a lot of FUN!

Jay learned about counting by tens using tiny pon poms to make ice cream cones with this worksheet.

This apples stamping worksheet was a fun way to count to 100. You just use the top of the pencil eraser and a stamp pad to color the "apples."


We graphed our jelly beans (from 2 Easter egg hunts) counting them by tens. These egg dishes work great for separating the colors.

And then compared how many of each color came from each hunt. The yellows won with the most at each hunt! Who knew that yellow was so popular?

I drew easter eggs of different colors on paper to separate the candy by the colors on the first hunt. As soon as they finished finding eggs we dumped all the candy into a big bowl and they separated the candy by color. After they were done we put the candy away and they haven't asked for it since! I think we will be doing this game again next year :)

We learned how to count by 10's using the first half of this tune (thanks Elspeth)
singing: "10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, that's how we count by tens."


This Hundred's chart is a great visual for all the counting. It's fun to cover some up and practice writing the missing numbers too.

And of course we finished off by doing a 100 piece puzzle!

I hope you have fun celebrating learning about 100 too!

Springtime Sensory Skills

We've had fun with These {Little Projects} for springtime. If you have little ones around they may enjoy these too :)

Fine Motor Building Skill: Easter Egg transfer
The little eggs and baskets are from Hobby Lobby. You could also use jelly beans (but I knew ours would be gobbled up). Use a spoon to transfer the eggs from the bowl to the little basket. Count as you go. You can also do addition and subtraction using the baskets to hold different numbers of eggs.

Springtime Sensory Box
Make colored rice and add bottles, baskets, buttons, beads, beans, scoops, spoons, and little treasures. This never gets boring at our house! I will post how to make your own rice sieve next week. It's a fun addition to your sensory box.