Easter Eggs

This one's a little late - sorry. Easy craft, but needs adult supervision. These are fun AND if kept in the fridge can be eaten (if you like hard boiled eggs)

What You Need: Eggs, food colouring, crayons.

What To Do: Hard boil your eggs (I boil mine for about 10 - 15 minutes), run the eggs under cool water until they can easily be handled and then completely dry them. Mix up some food colouring and water in small dishes (the more colour, the brighter it'll be on the egg). Have child, carefully, draw on the egg with crayon - older children can draw faces or repetitive designs. Dip the egg in colour (a quick dip will give you lighter colour, than letting it soak). You can do single colour eggs or you can dip multiple times for fun colour combos and colour mixing (this is good for teaching that two colours make a whole new one!).

**Hard boiled eggs can be kept for up to a week, if they are kept in the fridge.

Spiders and Critters

This was a fun little craft to pull out last minute. Takes very little prep, but if you've got a creative monkey it does take a little more paint supervision.

What You Need: Egg cups (for painting stuff, the cardboard ones would probably work better), paint (we use Crayola non toxic washable paints), pipe cleaners, glue, googley eyes and a marker.

What To Do: Lay out lots of paper and let your little one paint their cups. Once dry, tape pipe cleaner legs into the cup and glue or draw on eyes and a mouth. Voila - your own creepy crawly.

**As you can see in the picture, the paint started peeling off our spider when it was being played with - you can either use cardboard egg carton or use markers to colour a styrofoam egg cup. **

Spring is Springing: Rainbows

So this rainbow is not totally correct, but it's a starting point to teach little ones about them.

What You'll Need: Dyed noodles, cotton balls, lentils, markers, cardboard or thicker paper.

What to do: Dye your noodles with food colouring at least a few days before (soak noodles in colour for a few minutes and then lay out to dry on a cookie sheet), draw the lines of your clouds, rainbow, grass, flower, ect as a guide line for your little artist. Keep an eye on things as your little one glues everything into place. Allow lots of time to dry!

Spring is Springing: Butterfly

Spring may be springing everywhere, except in Central Alberta! That's not stopping us from getting started on our fun spring crafts. It may still be snowing outside, but inside we've got butterflies and flowers and rainbows! 

What You'll Need: Coffee filters, washable markers (permanent ones don't work), clothes pin or pipe cleaner, **optional; googley eyes, magnet**

What to do: Colour in big bold blotches on the filter, spray a bit of water in the center of the filter and watch as it seeps towards the edges and blends the colours. Let it dry completely (about 1/2 hour). Fold filter in half and scrunch together, you can use either a clothes pin (like we did) or use a pipe cleaner cut down to size. Glue on or draw eyes and fluff out the wings! Voila, you have a beautiful butterfly.

Tips: Don't use too much water as it can take a long time to dry.

If you use a pipe cleaner for the body make sure you twist it tightly and cut enough that you have a little extra at the top for antenas!

If using a pin, glue a magnent on the back and you can hang stuff on your butterfly!

Make a bunch of butterflies and hang them in a window to let the light shine through!

Magic Paint

What you'll need: Paint, water, paint brush/sponge, white crayon, white paper
Have child draw on the paper with white crayon. Then paint over it with watered down tempura paint or water colours. Watch as the childs drawing or scribbles or name or whatever 'magically' appear!