Age 3-5 years
by Allison McDonald
Earth Day is coming up and I have been talking to my kids more and more about why we recycle and what we also try to re-use at home. As you can imagine we re-use many things for projects and activities I write about on the blog. So much so that my son will often hand me his garbage and say ” Can you use this for a project?” Even I haven’t found a good use for string cheese wrappers ! Today we are using a collection of recycled objects for a wide open art project. As you will see my daughter has a favorite earth friendly painting tool.
- Gather your materials. You will need some paint, a tray for the paint, some paper, and recycled objects to paint with. We went around the house and into my art closet to choose the objects.
- Pour paint into the tray ( or cake pan) . I had my daughter look outside to tell me what colors she saw. Then we used those colors for the painting. I have the paper taped down because I had a feeling she’d end up finger painting and this keeps the paper from sticking to her hands and ending up on the floor.
- Explore!
This is wide open . She liked the toilet paper roll but hated the little cap. 
The ribbon spool made interesting prints but the real fun was in using her hands.
The ultimate re-usable paint brush! 
After plopping on the paint with her hands she explored the marks that some of the recycled objects made. 
Rolling the toilet paper roll was a fun discovery too. 
Books About Recycling
The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle: A Story About Recycling 
Trash And Recycling 
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While we were learning about China for Chinese New Year months ago we read about woodcut printing. I was going to do it with my toddler with foam but my daughter didn’t have the strength or dexterity to press hard enough into the foam to make a permanent designs so we adapted. This project will work for toddlers but older children will still love it. Woodcut Prints are normally carved and older children can do them with foam ( meat trays thoroughly washed were always my favorite!) , ivory soap and even erasers work . Did you carve yours in math class with your compass? No? Well if you did it’s the same technique. Our adaptation reverses the technique but for a toddler experience I think it was still fun intro into print making.
- Gather your materials. You will need some card board, good double stick tape, popscicle sticks, paint, paint brushes, some glitter glue ( optional but everything is better with a little sparkle) and white paper.
- Start by adding the double stick tape to the cardboard.
It’s tricky but forgiving, even if the tape is lumpy everything will be OK. I loved to see how hard she was working. You will need at least 4 or 5 pieces in random spots for popsicle sticks to stay on. You can absolutely use glue but make sure it’s all dry before moving on to step 4.
- Next add the sticks. Stick them on and press.
- Add your paint.
- Flip and print onto the paper. Add more paint as needed and keep printing layering it if you want.
- When your child is done printing add some flair if you want. My daughter was adamant about adding glitter.
- Let it all dry and display or use for wrapping paper!
Painting rocks is a classic craft and a family favorite around here. When my daughter and I gathered rocks outside I didn’t tell her what they were for knowing if I asked her what she wanted to do with them she’d say ” Let’s paint!” and she did. We used Martha Stewart paints that I got for this post last spring. I love these paints for adult crafts but they are not at all washable. Have wet sponges on hand for anything that might get paint on it like little boots that trail across your deck… for example. You could do this with more kid friendly paint but I just love the colors that this paint comes in and frankly it’s what I had on hand.
- Gather your materials. You will need some rocks , paint ( this is all weather so the eggs can be put outside) , brushes, a drop cloth like a paper grocery bag and sponges or a wet rag to clean up spills.
- Paint.
- After some pink
she decided like many of her favorite clothes this egg needed to have polka dots. 
- While she made the dots I made a striped egg.
- She helped me choose a few of the colors for the other eggs but after her big polka dot one she was ready to move on to playing in our garden while I had a blast painting in the sun.
She came back a few times to observe and give me tips like ” Make it polka dots!” . Toddlers aren’t made to sit for a long time carefully working on projects so don’t take it personally if they have enough way before you thought they would.
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by Allison McDonaldThis uppercase lowercase letter match activity is not ground breaking but combining it with an Easter theme helps makes letter recognition practice and skill development into play. Adding a fun novelty like a holiday theme does wonders for kids motivation and a motivated child is a child ready to learn. This activity is part of our Alphabet for Starters series which focuses on fun playful ways to learn the alphabet. A few easy adaptations for different levels would be doing a straight identical letter match having only all lower or all uppercase letters and doing this with sight words for emergent readers.
- Gather your materials. I got this egg tray at Walmart for under a dollar. I almost bought all 4 colors but I restrained myself and let my daughter pick her favorite color. You could use an egg carton just as effectively no need to buy anything special. You will also need some paper, marker , plastic Easter eggs and a bucket for the eggs. A circle paper punch is optional for the letters in the tray. You may also want some tape to tape the paper in the tray down. Ours got staticky and interrupted the flow a few times.
- Start by writing lowercase letters on small pieces of paper. Try to include a majority of letters your child knows ( about 2/3) and some you know have been challenging in the past. This will hopefully give them a good balance of ” This is challenging but I can do it!” which is the perfect zone for learning.
- Pop them in your tray.
- Write the corresponding upper case letters on the eggs in marker.
- Put the eggs in the bucket and invite your letter matcher to the table.
- Start matching.
She wanted to put the lowercase letter in the egg after matching them which is a fun add on even though a few of the eggs didn’t want to close back up and that frustrated her greatly. I think an older child would do wonderfully with this add on even if it proved to be too much for a 2 year old. I was tricky for her but with some help she got it. After that it was smooth sailing.
I thought Q would give her trouble but she was a champ.
Celebrate any and all victories. 
Books About Easter
Where Are Baby’s Easter Eggs?
The Best Easter Eggs Ever!
The Night Before Easter
This was not a planned project at all. My daughter and I were painting Easter eggs in the playroom when I saw all the materials for this all together in my closet and inspiration hit. This is a simple and quick shape matching activity but it also has elements of fine motor, sensory and the carrots give it just a touch of an Easter craft. You could do any shape to fit whatever theme you are learning about any time of year , another reason I think this is such a great activity.
- Gather your materials. You will need some sandpaper, felt , yarn, crayons and scissors.
- Start by drawing your carrots with crayons. In my experience using marker on sandpaper is a bad idea. The sandpaper bits end up in the felt tip and the markers are never the same again. Crayons are much more forgiving and vibrant.
- Cut your felt and yarn to size. Do not worry about an exact match. If exact means a lot to you reverse the order and use the felt shapes as a template and trace around them so they are exactly the same size. Either way your child will love it.
- Invite your little one to come explore the sandpaper. Talk a bit about the texture by asking questions and /or labeling what they are doing.
- Time to match up the shapes.
Talk about how soft the felt is too if there is a natural chance to do it. If your child is engaged and not at all interested in exploring the textures don’t sweat it. Follow their lead . - I had my daughter remove the shape after putting it down to see how “sticky” the sandpaper was. She was fascinated that her fingers didn’t stick but the felt did.
- Add the yarn.
This was tricky but it was supposed to be. Just remember to walk the line between challenging and frustrating. She matched up a few and that was enough – this is supposed to be fun not a test of fine motor skills. 
Books About Carrots
The Carrot Seed
Coco The Carrot
Carrot Soup
