Painting Easter Eggs

I blew about a dozen eggs for us to paint for easter this year. But when I took a look at them this weekend it turned out that I hadn't washed them thoroughly enough and they weren't too pretty. So I printed out an egg shape template instead, and the whole family spent about 2 hours painting them. Once they were dry we cut them out and hung them on a line across the corner of the room. Such a simple craft, but an excellent one anyway.

Outdoor Scavenger Hunt

I had the kids home for a sick day this week, and came across this wonderful outdoor scavenger hunt from Muddy Boots, with some very good ideas in it. So I thought I'd share it.

Personalised coffee cups

I first saw this on 2 Craft and 2 Create and thought it was a good idea, and so put the thought aside for a time when we wanted to create a birthday present for a grandparent.

At first I bought a bunch of multi-coloured permanent marker sharpies. The kids drew up some beautiful pictures. I cooked them, and then easily wiped them off with a wet cloth. Not happy. Moral of the story:

Don't use colours!

Second attempt in black and white and some even better pictures, a little baking (20 minutes on 180 C or 350 F), and we had our finished products. Personalised coffee cups, fit for any Mothers day, Fathers day or Grandparent's birthday.

Threading and Patterning.

Today we started with a couple of cut out cards Miss 3 brought home from Kindy this week. She wanted to stick them together. I suggested that she punch some holes in the side and turn it into a threading. She suggested threading beads on and started pointing out the patterns she was making so I decided to introduce her to Fibonacci numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8,...) and mirror patterning to add to her patterning, she finished it all off with some extra enhancements glued and stuck on top.

The result doesn't look all that impressive, but when you think about all the design decisions, fine motor threading exercises, counting, patterning, sewing lessons and a little bit of semi sidewalk maths thrown in, not to mention it was a very pleasant hour spent in the making, it was actually a super activity.