Easy Easter Projects

I planned on coming up with new projects staying at home but I think like many out there I have been just holding my breath with everything going on.

However I wanted to remind everyone of some old projects of mine that are easy to do at home in preparation for Easter and Spring.

I have been working everyday on my Pysanky, I'll share some photos in a bit but you can decorate eggs easily at home with just a few supplies you already own.



These are eggs decorated by a Kindergarten class.





MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- eggs, I know these may be hard to come by now but even just 1 per child, if you have old eggs don't throw them out use them for decorating
- oil pastels or wax crayons
- egg dye, food colouring, markers

PROCEDURE:

Take an egg, I use raw eggs as we are not eating them and over time they just dry out inside.

Draw on them with pastels or wax crayons.  Bright colours work best like yellow, orange, light green, light blue, even white which will show up after dying.

Choose 1 colour as the background and dye the egg.  Now most people will not have Easter egg dye but you can use the tabs they sell to dye eggs at the grocery store for this.  You can also use good old food colouring.  Dilute some in water.  Your colours may be pale but the designs will still stand out.
I have also used fabric dye that I had on hand, watercolour paint, acrylic ink and felt markers.


With markers colour a little on the egg then take a paintbrush and water and spread the colour over the egg.  It must be a non permanent marker to do this.  Like a Crayola or ones that most students have.

Some other good Easter projects to try:

Pastel or Crayon Paper Egg

Spring Chickens

Easter Lilies

Fluffy Chicks

Here are some of the eggs my daughter and I have been working on:

I have also found an excellent Pysanky site that we have been using for inspiration.

Saving the World: One Egg at a Time

I hope everyone stays safe and finds time to celebrate Easter in some small way this year.

Take care everyone.

Gail

File Folder Books Revisited

This is just a short post to remind you about this great project.
Grade 1 started their Penguin file folder books yesterday.  It occurred to me that these little books are not utilized enough.

The students were so excited to be creating their own book.

Using disk tempera paint we painted the front, back and pockets of the book, using the ideas I posted earlier the books are just adapted to be about Penguins instead of Polar Bears.

The Grade 1 teacher had stockpiled pre cut bookmarks, tabs, info sheets from previous books.  This made it so easy to create a new one.

This was the original book that started it all.

This post details how to make a file folder book.  With younger grades (K-2) I make the books ahead of time.  Older kids can easily follow along and make the basic book.





Disk tempera paint works quite well to paint these books.  Just decide on a basic palette of colours (4) that relates to the subject matter.

Inside is where the information goes using bookmarks, pictures, tabs, etc.








I use a clothespin to keep them closed when not in use.  They also display quite nicely as they stand up on their own.

This post was about the Aztec file folder book I designed for a summer camp.  It has different options.

and this post ( part 1, part 2) is about a Nature file folder book, again with different options.



In the past I have done a Frog life cycle file folder book, a Wetlands file folder book, an Iroquois file folder book, a butterfly life cycle file folder book, an Acadian culture file folder book, the Provinces and territories of Canada book, etc......you get the picture.  These books are extremely versatile and once you start making them if you stockpile your supplies they come together very easily.

They also make use of all the leftover bits of paper you have from other projects.  If you keep a tray box near the paper cutter to collect all 1-3.5 inch wide leftovers you will a stockpile in no time.

So please give these books a try.

Gail