Easter 2013 {in Pictures}

So sad this is blurry but I love it. 

some bubbles and a pep talk to get W back in the game

 Easter this year was filled with a lot of loot for the boys (thanks Grandparents). Two Easter egg hunts, confetti eggs, great friends, great food and time spent as a family celebrating one of the most important holidays of the year.

Today we are laying low as it seems our little Wolf is teething (mark my words, molars might be the end of me) enjoying all our goodies from yesterday and anxiously awaiting papa to get home from work. I hope your Easter was wonderful.

Leaf Printing and Palm Sunday

Sometime last week while playing outside I got the idea of doing a Palm Sunday craft that involved leaf printing. We went out and collected a few leaves and set ourselves up for an easy craft.

Materials needed
*green construction paper
*paints (we used light green, green, and yellow)
*collected leaves
*paint brush

There wasn't a whole lot of direction with this one. I was more curious to see how they were going to use their tools. Bear started painting the leaves themselves and later started stamping them on the paper while Wolf finger painted more and explored the leaves later. It was a very easy open ended project that  every kid will do differently.

I  later decided to cut out a donkey out of soft cardboard (cereal box) and have them paint it brown and cut the leaf print into a palm shape. I taped the donkey to the palm leaf and 'poof' you've got yourself a whole Palm Sunday craft.

Humpty Dumpty Puppet

image source 

Despite snotty noses and and extra naps there was only so much TV these boys were willing to watch before they started getting a little restless. We managed to get this little craft done. 

I got the idea from Hubbard's Cupboard yet again. I cut and glued the egg shaped paper to the bag and also pre-cut eyes, arms, legs, hands and feet. I laid out some markers and a glue stick and let him go to town. Only explaining to him that Humpty needed a face. It was a similar process to what we did last fall with our Jack O'lanterns but with a different result. He actually got the placement of the eyes right. 

It is so amazing how fast our children learn and process things. Even the most simple craft project can make you see how quickly they are growing. 

Easter's on its way!!!

There are so many wonderful things about Spring. Flowers blooming, more sunshine and of course Easter. Although the whole lunar calendar always throws me off but never the less it is a holiday that we are so blessed to celebrate. The boys Bubbie sent over a few simple Easter story books that we have been reading together and she actually lead me to Hubbard's Cupboard. They have an awesome lesson plan for 2 year olds that ties in crafts, scripture and fun activities for the whole month. I read through it and the basis of the lesson plan sounds simple and fun while leaving a few spots that I may want to change or add on to. What's great is that most of the activities shown are either with things that you might already have in your art supplies or items that you could easily pick up at your local dollar store.

Our first activity we tried was this eraser sorting game. I picked up a couple packs of these erasers at the dollar store and pulled out a few small plastic containers for the boys to sort with. At first I placed one type of eraser in each container letting B sort out the rest. He quickly got the hang of it and did it a few more times before starting to make simple patterns on the table with them. W got the idea of sorting but not putting them in each container. After he sorted them he would place them back in one container and do it again.

I enjoyed the fact that it was a perfect dinner making game since it is easy to clean up and it kept the boys occupied for some time. Definitely something that we will be doing again through out the month.


*** p.s. in the first image you can spot Bear's sport injury on his forehead that I mentioned in this post. What a trooper. **

Week 3: Butterfly theme

Last weeks theme I decided to make a bit more simple being that is was a double theme week (Easter) and I really wanted something that could be tied into the overall theme of Easter. Butterflies seemed like the perfect merge between our insect curriculum and The Resurrection. 

On Monday I introduced this super cheesy song my MIL introduced me to that fit the bill perfectly. I also introduced this life cycle book. It's in Spanish and I bit too old but the photographs are amazing and straight forward so it wasn't an issue. I took out a few of our butterfly toys for him to play with.

Butterfly on the train track

On Tuesday : Repeat Monday then we made a caterpillar using a popsicle stick and some pom poms.

 On Thursday: (yes Thursday, we took a bit of a break) We painted a coffee filter using watercolors and glued our caterpillar to it.

On Friday during B's nap I wrapped the butterfly in a few paper towels. When he woke up he unwrapped the chrysalis. 

Yay! A butterfly!!!!

butterfly destruction! Trucks, cars, and trains trump anything

Between this and the Resurrection eggs it was more than enough to keep this little guy busy. This week I decided to take it easy and rethink my next step. Have a great weekend.

Easter

   

Easter was jammed packed with family fun this year. We opened up Easter baskets first thing in the morning followed my breakfast and some egg dying. I tried these volcano eggs but somehow my results were not nearly as intense in pigment. I don't know what happened but Elliott and papi sure had fun with this science experiment. Yup that is Bubbie face timing during the egg dying :) After the boys nap we had lunch outside and an egg hunt. Elliott was entertained for a few minutes before deciding the his play room was more fun. We had a great day and it was so special spending together.