Day 110: Bunny Handprint Art (success).

Pinterest pin and website picture.

Happy Easter!  In honor of the day, we tried a hand-print bunny craft.  I'm a sucker for crafts with my kids hands or feet on them :)

Materials needed:
Washable paint
Paintbrush
Markers
Paper

Instructions:
Spread white paint over kids' hands, except for the thumb.  Stamp their hand on a colored piece of paper (attempting to have them do the Star Trek "Vulcan salute").  Let it dry and paint the ears, nose and eyes.

First attempt -- we didn't use enough pressure when we "stamped" her hand on the paper:

Second attempt:

 Done!

Verdict: SUCCESS!

Day 97: Kool-Aid Easter Egg Dye (success).

Pinterest pin and website link.

After discovering the way to make perfect hard-boiled eggs, we were ready to dye some Easter eggs using Kool-Aid!  This pin worked great, and my kitchen smelled so good while we were doing it -- as a child raised in the 80's, there was a lot of Kool-Aid consumed in my past.  The scent definitely brought back some sentimental memories for me!  

It was so quick and easy for my 4 year old to do this himself without staining his hands / clothing, and each packet only cost 20 cents!  I had only picked up 2 Kool-Aid packets, but before Easter comes, we'll be doing this again with many more colors and the rest of our family members!

Ingredients:
1. Fill a coffee cup or bowl with enough water to cover an egg placed in the water.  We had enough here to fit 2-3 eggs in at a time.

2. Add a single Kool-Aid packet to the water.  Stir until crystals are completely dissolved.
3. Add a hard-boiled egg, and leave in for a few minutes for a deeper color.
4. Remove egg and allow to dry.

Verdict: SUCCESS!

Day 96: Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs (success).

Pinterest pin and website link (by the way, I kind of loved this writer.  She used the term "eggporn."  That's really all the introduction she needs -- go see her post!).

Her trick?  Throwing some baking soda in the egg water.  She made a bigger batch than I did and used 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda in her water, so I used 1/4 teaspoon and it worked perfectly.  The eggs were cooked to perfection and the shell easily came off without sticking.

Ingredients:
12-18 eggs (the fresher the eggs, the more the eggshell will stick -- so older is better!)
Water
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

Instructions:
1. Put eggs in the pot and cover with cold water.
2. Dump in the baking soda.
3. Heat the water, uncovered, using medium-high to high heat.
4. When the water begins to boil, let the eggs boil for 1-2 minutes.
5. Cover the pot and take it off the heat.
6. Let the eggs rest in the covered pot for exactly 13 minutes.
7. Put the eggs into a cold water bath.
8. When the shells are cool enough to handle, peel them.

Day 80: Plastic Easter Egg Learning Activities (success).

Pinterest pin and website link.

During my 40 Bags in 40 Days cleanse, I came across loads of plastic Easter eggs that are just collecting dust in our house.  

My son rarely likes doing anything educational with me unless I can disguise the learning really well, and this evidently fit the bill.  He was all over the two activities I chose -- a number match and an upper-and-lowercase matching activity (both explained on the above link).  The only thing I changed in both activities was mixing up the colors of the top and bottom parts to each egg; I didn't want him guessing the correct answer by matching colors instead of actually looking at the numbers or letters on the eggs!

I'll be trying more of these when we get a little closer to learning word families or other pre-reading strategies.

Verdict: SUCCESS!