Lesson Plans Toddlers and Preschoolers: E is for Easter

Circle/Quiet Time: Concepts to share with your child or class this week include bunnies, ducks, and chicks. Easter is a celebration of new life and newborn animals are usually associated with this holiday. During circle time is the perfect opportunity to include the songs, books and finger plays below.

Science Activity: Hard boil eggs and talk to your children about the concepts of hot, boiling, and steam. Use this opportunity to show how the heat will boil the insides of the egg. The most interesting part about boiling an egg is (if you are lucky) the shell won't crack and it is like magic for the kids that the hard egg is inside with the shell on the outside.

Snack: Easter Egg Bagels: Slice and toast plain bagels. You can reinforce the concepts of hot and cold with this delicious snack activity. The heat of the warmed bagel and the cold of cream cheese is a good way to teach contrasts. Tint cream cheese with a little bit of food coloring. I like to use all of them. But mixing the cream cheese with a few drops of food coloring you get some great Easter colored cheese. Give the children their halves of a bagel and allow them to use spread the colored cream cheese on bagel for snack. This is a great colors reinforcement activity also.

Concepts: Colors, hot and cold

Gross Motor:

The Bunny Hop: Have some fun with your children hopping around the room or outside. Or you can draw hop scotch squares onto the ground outside with chalk and practice hopping and counting at the same time. Afterwards let your children color the sidewalk and driveway with the colored chalk.

Tunnels, such as those that can be used indoors or outdoors are perfect for this week's gross motor activity. Hide and crawl through the tunnels like rabbits do. Don't have the vinyl or plastic tunnel at your house of childcare; use your imagination and a tunneled slide as an alternative.

Baby duck/chick flap: Flap arms and quack like a duck, or cheep like a chick while walking around outside or inside.

Art/Fine Motor:

Be sure to allow your children or classroom to participate in process and product art activities. Free scribbles and art are an important part of a child's development. For more information you may want to readBuilding Prewriting Skills through Drawing or Precutting Cut's Out Learning, Common Preschool Mistakes.

Easter Baskets: Children can create their own Easter baskets with the following materials. Using a brown paper lunch sack for the basket, assist children in cutting green construction paper to resemble grass strips. Glue green grass to bottom of basket and then allow children to decorate with markers and Easter stickers.

Bunny Puppets: Using white lunch bags for the base of the puppet cut out white and pink ears from construction paper and glue to bag. Attach a pink triangle for nose, black felt strips or pipe cleaners for whiskers and googly eyes for a silly face.

Concepts: Cutting, gluing, coloring, and shapes (triangle for nose, ovals for ears)

Easter Eggs: It would not be Easter without coloring Easter eggs. You have several options available to your children or class. To keep messes to a minimum use the boiled eggs from the science activity and use one of the kits available in the grocery store. My favorite includes the stickers and also the color on crayons.

Egg Collage: Using white construction paper cut out an oval shape. Then decorate it with torn pieces of tissue paper giving it a unique texture as well as all the colors and design similar to a real Easter egg. This activity is simple enough for even the younger toddlers.

Sponge Paints: On a large piece of paper stamp paint with sponges shaped like eggs, bunnies, chicks, or ducks using paint colors suitable for Easter. It's great fun for all and allows the children to use their own creativity. You can also use cookie cutters for a different look and feel.

Music/Fine Motor

Sung to Ten Little Indians-Ten Little Bunnies, Ten Little Ducklings, or Ten Little Easter Eggs

1 Little 2 Little 3 Little . . . Bunny, Duckling, Eggs to 10 using fingers to count

Ending with 10 Little Bunnies Hopping, 10 Little Ducklings Quaking and 10 Little Eggs in my Basket.

Five and Five Eggs:
Five and five eggs -Hold up hands

That makes ten -Sitting on top is mother hen-Fold one hand over the other

Crackle crackle crackle -Clap hands three times-

What do I see-Fingers around eyes

Ten fluffy chickens-As yellow as can be- Hold up ten fingers.

Five Little Ducks Went Out to Play

Peter Cottontail and Humpty Dumpty

Letter of the Week: E

Colors of the Week: Green, Pink, Yellow, Blue, Green

Books/Video

DVD's
Max and Ruby: Easter with Max and Ruby; it's the Easter Beagle Charlie Brown, or the Great Easter Egg Hunt

Books:
Max's Easter Surprise (Max and Ruby); The Berenstain Bears' Baby Easter Bunny, younger children will enjoy Where are Baby's Easter Eggs" A Lift the Flap Board Book which features young toddlers favorite concept of peek a boo, looking under the flaps for the Easter eggs.

Cost of plans: Package of brown lunch bags, .99, white bags 1.99, package of googly eyes are approximately 1.49, paint, construction paper and marker are probably in your craft box at home or in the supply room at school, eggs 1.99/dozen, coloring kits 2.99.