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Easter decorations – eggs and more eggs

Easter decorations – eggs and more eggs, some to decorate and some to eat!

It’s very straightforward to make salt dough eggs but you do need to do this ahead as the dough shapes need to dry out.

To make them you need to start with a salt dough. This is very easy. You need

2 cups plain flour,
I cup of salt
I cup of water (add this gradually as you may not need it all).
Kneed the dough on a floured surface and roll out to about 4mm thick. As you do this keep making sure it isn’t sticking to the work top. To make an egg shape I used a template and cut around it. You could also use an egg shaped biscuit cutter.
If you are making hanging decorations you need to make a hole for the thread about 1cm away from the edge. Then leave the shapes to dry. They will air dry, but it will take a long time (48 hours plus)
Alternatively, put them in a low oven, not more than 100C, for up to 4 hours. (They can burn so keep an eye on them). Once dry you can paint them as I did or leave them plain for children to decorate.

Roll out the salt dough

Use a template or cutter to make egg shapes

Cut out

Pierce a hole about 1cm away from the edge

Leave to dry out – the shapes should be solid after 48 hours.

Paint using poster paint

Decorate and add yarn to make a loop

Children of almost any age can decorate these simple egg shapes. We used them at toddler group with pre-schoolers, but they would be great for older children who would be able to do more intricate designs or pictures.

We used felt tips to decorate but you could also glue coloured paper on to them and add glitter! A covering of PVA glue at the end will add a shine – but as you can see in the pictures the colours may run a bit.

I loved this craft and my own children had a really good time using up the left over eggs later on at home.

Lots of chocolate eggs to give as Easter gifts

Our Easter Story in toddler group focused on the people who saw Jesus alive again. We reviewed what we had learnt about our eyes first and then the story was told about Jesus dying but coming back to life again.

Links to these stories and other ideas for celebrating Easter –

Thank you God for our eyes – part of our ‘Thank you God’ series

The Easter Story

Palm Sunday – Palm leaf craft

Easter is nearly here! In toddler group we have been learning about being ‘Wonderfully made’ and have already talkied about our mouths that shout, whisper and taste’ and our ears that can ‘hear shouts and whispers’. The Bible story that we are using to develop this is the Palm Sunday story that we read in Luke 19:29-40, Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-10, John 12:12-15. In these accounts people shouted ‘Hosanna!’ and everyone heard. The story will be told simply and the children will be encouraged to shout ‘Hosanna’ in the appropiate places!

The above craft is palm leaf shapes for the children to decorate using chalk, felt tip and wax crayons. I prefer wax crayons rather than the plastic variety as they blend and make a better mark on the paper.

The word Hosanna means ‘Save please’ and also ‘Salvation has come.’ Take a look at what John Piper has to say about Hosanna!

Jar of perfume craft – mary anoints Jesus

There are Bible stories that tell us what happened just prior to Jesus’ death and ressurection. One of these stories tells us about mary annointing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume.

As the children had been learning that we are ‘Wonderfully Made’ we started with the familiar – we thanked God for our noses and how they help us to smell (we did the flower craft for this). Then we moved from the familiar to something new – the story of mary and the expensive perfume she used to anoint Jesus. The story is found in John 12: 1-8 where we read that, ‘the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.’ When you tell the story have a bottle of perfume to show.

The craft was very simple – a shelf and an assortment of perfumes bottles to stick onto it. You could spray these with perfume beforehand (before the children arrive). I have shown what the craft would be like using colour printing/photocopying and black and white. I did go around the outlines of the bottles with marker pen so they stand out more and I cut them out in a bubble – but they need a flat bottom to sit on the shelf!!

Zacchaeus craft

A few weeks ago in toddler group we learnt about our feet. To build on that we have done a Bible story that includes feet – in Luke 19 we read that a man called Zacchaeus ‘wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him.’ (Luke 19:3,4). In the story time we looked again at our feet being wonderfully made and then continued with the story of Zacchaeus. With very young children it may be enough to just teach that Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus and how he managed to do that. Children can run on the spot and pretend to climb a tree as you tell the story. With school age children you could tell the whole story.

For the craft we had a tree outline and leaves cut from different types of paper and material – which gives the picture some texture and adds different shades of green. Each child had just one man to stick in the tree.

For another idea about telling this story see here.

Wonderfully made!

We are all wonderfully made! David writes in Psalm 139, ‘I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made’.

There are lots of different crafts you can do that are all about people. Here’s a couple of ideas..

People shapes decorated with tissue paper

Use people shapes!

For this craft you need to make or buy people cut outs. (The ones in the picture are bought). Try to use the shapes that are different skin colours if you can. Paper shapes are best – there are some that are foam which aren’t suitable for young children so be careful when buying online. Provide shapes for clothes and crayons or felt tips for added detail. You could also add yarn for hair. Have variety for the children to choose from.

People shapes decorated with fabric and yarn

Make a collage of faces – I used photos from magazines (you may recognise some famous faces!). It’s useful to collect free magazines form places like Tesco if you can or ask for donations. It’s much cheaper than printing pictures out at home.

Photos of people made into a collage picture

Some song ideas

Head, shoulders, knees and toes
From my head down to my toes God loves me
Open shut them, open shut them, make your hands go clap
I’ve got a body, a very busy body – have a look at the video – it’s a great tune and you could add your own lyrics.

Tabitha -T-shirt craft

Tabitha -T-shirt craft is a really lovely simple collage based craft. It is great to have a stash of fabric off cuts to use for craft – adding a different texture to paper and lots of colours.

The story of Tabitha (Dorcas) is found in the Bible in Acts 9:36-43. She was a follower of Jesus who helped others by making clothes. We used this story as an extension to ‘Thank you God for our hands’. The story was told to under threes using a bag of items that you need for sewing – scissors, material, thread, needle, pin cushion. These were taken from the bag one at a time and named. We also had a picture of Tabitha sewing. We didn’t talk about Tabitha dying and being bought back to life but you could do that with older children.

The above craft is a T-shirt outline to decoarte with fabric shapes and glue. I used a variety of colours and the children could also use crayons. A very simple craft but effective and fun.

t-shirt (1)Download

Our Amazing bodies! – our mouths

At toddler group we’ve been learning about our amazing bodies during story time. This week it’s the turn of our mouths. We think about two things in the story, songs and craft – we use our mouths to speak and we use them to eat. Our focus is, ‘I am wonderfully made’.

Story time- our amazing bodies – our mouths

In the story time we are using a Bible verse, ‘I am ..wonderfully made.’ Psalm 139:14. (We left out the word fearfully just because the children are so young.) This week we are thinking about our mouths – how we use our mouths to talk to each other. We can SHOUT and whisper. We talk about eating with our mouths too – thus the craft.

Song time

In our song time we’ll sing, ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’ very quietly, ‘Row, row, row your boat – with a scream for the crocodile, ‘Horsey, horsey don’t you stop’ with the clip, clop sound effects and ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes’.

Craft time

This is the craft to go with the theme. The children at toddler group are 3 years old and under and their parent/carer usually sits with them at the craft table – this is an opportunity for lots of chat about the different food.

To do this all you need are – paper plates, pictures of food either from magazines or from the web printed and cut out and glue sticks. Choose food that is familiar and a mixture of fruit and veg and the less healthy but yummy – in this case a cup cake. I avoided meat as I know we have children who wouldn’t be allowed certain meats.

Note – don’t put everything out on the craft table at once or some children won’t have anything left to use. Have a pencil handy so parents/carers can write the child’s name on their plate but don’t leave this on the table. I did a few weeks ago and one child had a lot of fun drawing lines on all the paper!

You could do this with older children. Use smaller pictures all on one page and get them to do the cutting out. They can select what they would like for their plate.

Enjoy!

All we like sheep… memory verse idea

All we like sheep have gone astray memory verse idea. This idea uses sheep pictures – one picture for each word of the Bible verse from Isaiah 53:6

To Prepare …
Start with a simple sheep picture. Search online or draw your own. Print out enough for one word per sheep and the Bible reference. I used card so I could decorate each sheep with cotton wool. Write on the verse or print out the words and stick them on. You could attach velcro to the back to stick to a flannel board or magnets for a white board or blue tac.

To Learn the verse…
To introduce the verse to the children (ages 5-10ish) hide the sheep around the room (before the children arrive).

Explain that your sheep have wandered off – gone astray- and everyone needs to find them. As the sheep are found place on the board or wall in the correct order. Once they are all there say the verse together a few times.

Show the children where the verse is found in the Bible. To help the children learn the verse say a few more times removing a sheep each time.

Explain that we are like sheep – we want to go our own way rather than God’s way.

To Make the verse as a craft for the children to take home

Craft idea – give each child a sheep and get them to write the verse in the centre (you could do this for younger ones or reluctant writers). Have glue and cotton wool and coloured pens/crayons to decorate the sheep.

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Some song ideas

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Story time- our amazing bodies – our mouths

Song time

Craft time

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To Make the verse as a craft for the children to take home

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