Spring & Easter Art Projects {Thank You, Pinterest}

Like many people I know, I have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest.  I LOVE having a visual reference tool at my fingertips.  I HATE when I follow the directions to a T and the project fails miserably!  Remember this pin?

I tried this with my daughter last year.  I’m a little embarrassed to share this, but here’s what happened:

On the bright side, my daughter didn’t know any better, so she still thought they were beautiful and amazing.

Since I’m home with my kids, I like to put a fresh spin on our daily routine now and then.  When my baby naps, my 4-year-old and I have some quality time together.  While some days are filled with dollhouses, dress-up, obstacle courses, and dance parties, other days I like to plan a special craft or baking activity.  Pinterest has been a helpful resource when I’m in a creative rut.  Here are some of the crafts we’ve been working on for spring (some of which could easily be taken back to the classroom):

Pinterest inspiration on the left side {source}

My daughter has been loving the rain/sunshine combo because she loves to hunt for rainbows.  I decided to bring the rainbows indoors.  For her rainbow painting, I drew the lines on her paper and her job was to put the colors in the right order and stay in the lines.  She picked out the rainbow colors from my scrapbook paper.  While I held the papers, she cut them into strips.  Then we worked together to link them in rainbow order (“Mama, we made a patter-an”, as she likes to say) and glue them.  In the picture it looks like a fancy paper scarf!  The last project used a few of the leftover scraps from the rainbow chain.  After cutting out a cloud shape, she covered it in cotton balls and attached the strips in rainbow order.  

Pinterest inspiration in upper left corner {source}:

This one didn’t work out exactly as planned.  We tried a sheet of my daughter’s painting paper first, followed by a sheet of cardstock.  The combination of the textured cardboard lid, water, and rough scrubbing motion made a hole in the egg both times.  My daughter was very disappointed.  I’ll have to rethink this one and give it another attempt.

I had a back-up plan.  We just kept the paper as a rectangle, taped off, and used washable paints.  My daughter thought it was magic when the tape was removed and white lines showed up.  Oh, to be young again!

Easter Egg 
Pinterest inspiration in upper left corner {source}

Since we already had the washable paints out, this one was a no-brainer.  I cut the egg template out freehand and drew four wavy lines on the egg where my daughter pointed.  She used a variety of paintbrushes rather than poms & clothespins.  This project was her favorite!

Pinterest inspirations on left side{source}{source}:

 After my daughter selected the colors for this project, I cut the ears, nose, mouth, and whiskers. My daughter helped squeeze the glue onto the paper plate.  She carefully placed all of the cotton balls until the glue was covered.  While the glue dried, she used a glue stick to put the ears together.  Then she added googly eyes (peel & stick).  I put the glue on the mouth, nose, and whiskers, but my daughter got to put them on the bunny.  She couldn’t wait to show it off!

Pinterest inspiration in upper left corner {source}:

Before we started this project, I gave my daughter time to work with a fork as a paintbrush.  She found she needed to raise the end of the fork up to get the lines to show in the paint.  She had fun spreading the paint into a big yellow blob.  Then she begged to do it again so there would be a mama chick AND a baby chick.  When the paint dried, she got to add the googly eyes, beak, and legs (I cut out the beak and legs for her).  The only thing my daughter didn’t like was that her paper wrinkled pretty badly when we tried to mount the artwork onto cardstock.  The paper was not super thick to begin with and once we added paint and googly eyes, it was super flimsy.  I think next time we’d start with much sturdier paper.

Cookies

OK, so this one was inspired by hunger, not Pinterest.  Little ones (and grown-ups) love cookies.  For the holidays, we’ve baked some sugar cookies and my daughter got to decorate them with frosting and sprinkles.  

PS – The green for St. Patrick’s Day was not visually appealing, but the cookies were still delicious!

Happy Teaching!