Crafts and Games
Pretty Spring Basket

Take a box that is about a inch or two high ( the bottom of a milk carton works nicely) and cover it with green construction paper. Then take craft sticks and paint them white and glue them all around the outside of the box. Should look like a white picket fence. Add Easter grass in the box which can be glued down if you so choose. Then add a scenery to your box trees, bears, bunnies, ribbons or perhaps something else your into such as chicka chicka boom boom letters and the coconut tree. Have fun be creative

Birds Nest

Give your child a large piece of paper cut in the shape of a nest. Have them tear brown paper and paste these onto the nest shape. Give the children fabric strips, string or yarn pieces to paste onto the torn brown paper. Then give the children precut egg shapes to paste on top of the nest. Talk about what birds do in the spring time and where they go in the winter. Maybe even look for nests outside.

Beautiful Butterflys

Trace butterflies on white construction paper. Provide lots of little tissue paper squares for the children to glue on. A paste made from egg white and glue painted on with a paint brush gives them a beautiful sheen.

Flower Pots

Dye Campanella pasta (a.k.a. bellflowers) pretty spring colors,How to let dry.
You will need: the colored pasta, old play dough, pipe cleaners cut short, plastic tops from liquid detergents and/or softener jugs.
Have the kids thread the flower pasta onto the pipe cleaner "stems." Make a bunch of these. Fill the plastic tops with old play dough. These will become the flower pots. Have the children arrange their flowers in the pot.

Popcorn Blossoms

Popcorn, Tissue Paper, Construction paper
Cut a tree shape out of brown construction paper. Pop the popcorn and shake in a baggie with a bit of red dry tempera paint to make pink flower blossoms. Cut green tissue paper into squares. Scrunch the tissue paper and glue on tree for leaf buds and glue the popcorn on the tree for blossoms.

Color sand Parrots

Construction paper - colored sand - feather - glue.
Draw the simple shape of the parrot on construction paper cut out and "paint them with colored sand " then they add some feathers and the Parrot is ready .
(Use watered down glue and then let your child shake the sand on it)


Back Yard in a Bucket

Find a wash bin or other semi large container that can serve as a sensory bucket and fill it with dirt. Give your kids watering cans, rakes and shovels to play in the dirt. Next you can plant grass seed and show your kids how to take care of it by watching and watering it. Once the grass is tall enough add some children's scissors so they can mow the lawn. If you still have grass at Easter you can add plastic eggs to hide and hunt for!

Lots of ideas for spring

Visit a local greenhouse to see Easter lilies and other spring blooming plants.
Visit a loca farm to see newborn animals, spring planting or beehives.
Visit a hatchery and obtain chicken or duck eggs to hatch.
Visit a zoo that may have newborn animals and/or a petting farm section.
Go to a park on a nature walk or to an open field to fly a kite.
Visit a Feed and Seed Store.
A small shallow stream of water is a safe place to observe water creatures like tadpoles, frogs, crayfish, and minnows.

Book Recommendations
Songs and Fingerplay
Rain on the green grass,
Rain on the tree,
Rain on the house top.
But not on me.
I Like It When It's Mizzly
I like it when it's mizzly and just a little drizzly so everything looks far away and make- believe and frizzly.
I like it when it's foggy and sounding very froggy.
I even like it when it rains on streets and weepy windowpanes and catkins in the poplar tree and me.
Windy Word
I am the wind
And you'd better watch out!
I can run, I can fly;
I can whistle and shout.
I can tap on your window
And howl at your door,
Tug on your coat tails,
Bellow and roar.
But in March I'm the loudest;
Look out for my might!
For when you're not looking
I'll steal your new kite.
First you take the seed and you plant it in the ground.
(Mime taking a seed and planting it in your other hand, balled up in a fist.)
Next a rain cloud comes and waters all around.
(Keep fist with seed same, use other hand to simulate a rain cloud raining down on seed.)
Next the sun shines brightly, without a sound.
(Keep fist with seed same, use other hand to shine down by moving fingers over seed.)
And in just a few days... a flower is found!
(Move fist with seed up through other hand and open like a flower. This is actually the sign for "new" or "flower.")
Five Little Flowers
Five little flowers standing in the sun (hold up five fingers)
See their heads nodding, bowing one by one (bend fingers one at a time)
Down, down, down Comes the gentle rain (raise hands, wiggle fingers, and lower arms)
And the five little flowers raise their heads again (hold up five fingers)
It is Spring TimeTune: Are You Sleeping)
It is spring time
It is spring time
Winter's gone
Winter's gone
Summer time is coming
Summer time is coming
It won't be long
It won't be long
Bonus: Science experiment - Cut some small branches from apple trees. Put them in water and set on a sunny window sill. They will be forced to leaf out, I even had one bloom one year! You could use forsythia, peaches, pears or any bush or tree that goes dormant during winter. This could be done as early as Feb or as late as April.
***Garage sales get to be into full swing now. Talk to your little ones about giving away their toys so that you can go out together and find new ones!***
Snack Ideas

Birds nests - chowmein noodles mixed with peanut butter formed into a nest shape. Add a hard boiled egg to the center.

Kite Toast - cut the top edges of your toast off to make it into a kite shape. Add a 'T' of cheese slice and another for a tail.

Fruity Flowers -Use kiwi slices or grapes for the center and surround with 'petals' apple & orange slices, slice a banana lengthways into fours for the stem and use more kiwi or grapes for the leaves.