Paper Plate Chickens

Not so long ago, the Queen gave a great message about how Easter isn't cancelled, just because of the Coronavirus lockdown. In the same way, neither is Spring, or, for that matter, Summer!

Blossom is bursting out, and whether we can see it or not, young animals are being born.

So, today I thought I'd share our chicken craft, that we did this time last year.

You can accompany this craft with Dora's Chicks, if you have access to the book, or you and your child could have great fun, singing, 'Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken lay a little egg for me!'

Song

Spot the missing feature!

Equipment:

• Paper plates

• Googly Eyes

• Feathers

• Red Cardboard to cut out wattles and combs

• Yellow card for beaks

• PVA glue & glue spreaders

• Scissors

Preparation:

Cut out some Wattles and Combs for your paper plate chickens, from red (or maybe even pink) card.

Cut beaks from yellow card.

Gather some pictures of chickens for the children to look at.

Method:

1. Fold Paper plate in half.

2. Assist children to look carefully at the chicken pictures and think about where to place, eyes, wattles, combs and beaks. You may end up with all kinds of variations, including multiple eyes, but I tend to let that go, as art and craft should really be about allowing the children the opportunity to express themselves. It can also be a great way to assess their understanding.

3. Attach feathers, as desired, using PVA glue.

Easter Gardens

Let me just stress, this isn't something we've tried at toddler group... yet!

However, I think this is a great activity to try out at home with young children and could be a great starting point for discussing the story of Easter.

This one was made by my daughter.

The great thing is, that this garden was made completely with things we already had at home, or found on a walk.


Equipment:

• Tray or pot of some kind (small or as big as you like)

• Small flower pot (this one came from a pile that I have amassed)

• Stones/gravel

• One large stone to cover the mouth of your flower pot

• Moss

• Twigs

• String

• Scissors

• Embellishment (this can be natural or man made)

• Soil/compost

Method:

1.  Choose a tray or pot for your base. You may have an old flowerpot or seed tray hanging round in the garden, but you could also use a tray from a ready meal, if it's been washed out.

2.  Fill the pot with soil or compost.

3.  Take a small plant pot and half submerge it in the soil/compost, to create a little cave tomb.

4.  Use some stones to create a little pathway to the pot/tomb. My daughter added a little sand to hers.

5.  Place clumps of moss around the tomb, to look like grass. 

6. Use string, to join two twigs to make a cross shape and place it in the soil above the 'tomb'.

7. Embellish your scene with small plants/plant material. We used some man made flowers.

8. Find a big stone/pebble to place beside the mouth of your pot, to be the stone that was rolled away.

9. Find a spot to place your little Easter garden, where it can be enjoyed. Don't forget to keep it watered, to keep it looking fresh!

Easter Nests

Strictly speaking this is not of course a craft, but hey, it's Easter and making these must surely be a young child's rite of passage. 

Anyway, it's such an easy recipe, and involves chocolate, and who can resist that?

Yum! Yum!

Equipment:

• Baking tray

• Muffin cases*

• Silicone spatula

• Saucepan

• Mixing bowl

• Hob

*The original recipe calls for 10 paper cases. I use 12, as although it's nice to have great chunky cakes, I think a little goes a long way, especially with little ones! If you'd like yours to be bigger, I'd suggest using one and a half times the amounts given above, except for the pack of Mini Eggs.

Ingredients:

225 g  Chocolate

50 g  Margarine/Butter

2 tbs  Golden Syrup

100 g  Cornflakes

1 pack Mini Eggs


Safety Notes:

1. If doing this with young children, you may wish to do the heating and stirring part yourself. If you allow children of any age, please supervise carefully. Obviously you want to avoid the children being burnt by the pan as it heats up and once it's been taken off the heat and also be aware of the danger of catching hair/clothing on the flames.

2. With younger children, you may want to halve the mini eggs, lengthways (as we do with grapes at toddler group), to reduce the chance of choking. However, take care, as Mini Eggs shells are brittle and quite tricky to halve with a sharp knife!

Method:

1. Place the muffin cases in a baking tray. 

2. Place the chocolate, margarine and golden syrup in the saucepan. Gently heat the mixture, stirring the ingredients with the spatula as they melt. 

3. Place the cornflakes into a mixing bowl and add the mixture from the saucepan. Mix together, thoroughly.

4. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases. 

5. Make a little well in each little blob of mixture, to form the 'nest' shape.

6. Place 3 mini eggs in each 'nest'. 

7. Place in the fridge to allow the chocolate to harden.


Recipe taken from Topmarks

Incy Wincy Spider

There can't be a playgroup in the land who has never sang Incy Wincy Spider. 

This Song is certainly a favourite of ours, and surely quite topical, with the the wet weather we've been having this year.

We've made various versions of Incy in the last four or five years, but I think this one is my favourite!

Each one is unique!

Equipment:

• Play dough 

• Googly eyes

• Pipe cleaners

• Paper plates/small pieces of card

• Felt pens

Preparation:

• Make play dough (recipe link*). 

• Cut pipe cleaners in half and then in half again.

Method:

1. Take a small lump of play dough and roll into a ball.

2. Add two googly eyes. We provided a few different sizes, to choose from.

3. Add pipe cleaners as legs. Children may decide to add as few or as many as they like, but that is totally fine!

4. Place on paper plate/card and write name on the side, ready for home time.

* We used the Kids with Food Allergies rice flour recipe, so that it would be suitable for anyone allergic to wheat/gluten. We used black food colouring, to make the spider, but actually your spiders could be quite colourful, if you like! Play dough can be made a few days in advance but will need to be stored in the fridge in a air tight container.

Springtime Daffodils

One activity that always goes down well at playgroup is planting. Usually we'd plant seeds, but this activity coincided with St Patrick's Day, so we decided to opt for daffodils. 

All very well and good, but bulbs actually need planting in November, so we cheated and bought some that were ready sprouted, for the children to plant in their pots!

All potted up!

The question was, what song to sing? Not knowing any St Patrick Day songs, Mary Mary, Quite Contrary, seems a good choice to me!



Equipment:

• Pots of young daffodils (we got ours at Asda*)

• Tuff builder's tray

• Compost

• Plastic trug

• Small trowel/large spoon

• Paper cups (we bought a selction of coloured cups from Baker Ross*)

• Stickers

• Felt Pens

• Washing up bowl with soapy water (for hand washing)

• Towel

Preparation:

• Buy daffodil pots & compost. Open the compost bag and empty into plastic trug.

• Lay out planting equipment on Tuff tray. It makes a good base that will contain some of the mess.

Ready for action

Method:

1. Decorate paper cup with stickers & felt pens.

2. Fill pot halfway with compost.

3. Place bulb in pot.

4. Add more compost around the bulb and press down firmly.

5. Wash hands thoroughly, to make sure all the compost is cleaned off.


*Any indication of where we sourced products is just to help you find suitable products and materials. We are not affiliated to any companies. We do not profit by mentioning them..

Marching Drums

One of the songs our littlies love to sing at playgroup is The Grand Old Duke of York. So it seems only natural to make our own drums, with which to sing along!

Ready to march!

If you need a reminder, the words of the song can be found by following this link.


Equipment:

• Used container with lid

• Coloured paper circles

• Felt pens

• Stickers - we ordered some instrument stickers from Baker Ross*

• PVA glue and spreaders

• Plasticine

• Short sticks

Not that attractive in its original state, you can see why it needed covering!

Preparation:

• Collect suitable tubs/containers.

• Cut coloured paper/light card circles for the top of the tub. You could also do as I did, and cut card to fit the side of the tub, or if you're feeling brave you could use poster paint mixed with PVA glue.

Method:

1. Use PVA glue to stick coloured paper on the tub, to prepare the surface for decoration.OR paint decoration using paint mixed as above.

2. Decorate coloured paper using felt pens & stickers.

3. Roll a ball of plasticine and mould it round the end of a short stick, to form a drumstick.

4. Don't forget to try them out at song time! The children are sure to enjoy marching round with their drums!

*We sourced ours from Baker Ross. We are not affiliated to Baker Ross in any way. We do not profit by mentioning them. Baker Ross are mentioned merely to assist sourcing of materials.

Spoon Dollies

I don't know if you're like me, but if you're not careful, you can fall into a rut at Song Time - singing all the same old songs with very little variety, which can get a little boring. 

Basing our craft on Songs and Rhymes has helped me to choose more carefully. This week we had great fun making Spoon Dollies, so we could sing 'Miss Polly had a Dolly.'

This was our example, made by my daughter

Equipment:

• Wooden spoons* 

• Large cupcake paper cases

• Ribbon of various thickness/lengths

• Pipe cleaners

• Wool

• Felt Pens

• PVA glue & glue spreaders

• Googly eyes

• Stickers

• Buttons

We bought ours from Baker Ross

Preparation:

1. Cut lengths of wool in various colours (to use for hair).

2. Cut short lengths of ribbon.

Method:

1. Use PVA glue to stick on googly eyes.

2. Use felt pen to draw on nose/mouth etc.

3. Push paper cupcake case onto the end of the spoon, to form a skirt. You could add a small lump of Blu tac inside to hold in place, but we sued a blob of PVA glue.

4. Stick ribbon onto the top part of the spoon handle to form a top for the dolly. 

5. Wind a pipe cleaner around the top of the spoon handle to form arms.

6. Use PVA glue to add 'hair'. My daughter used some fake hair from our craft box, but the children at playgroup used wool, which was just as effective.

7. Embellish with buttons/stickers, then leave to dry.

*We sourced ours from Baker Ross. We are not affiliated to Baker Ross in any way. We do not profit by mentioning them. Baker Ross are mentioned merely to assist sourcing of materials.

Chinese Lanterns

Our second week of Songs and Rhymes and the aim was to introduce a new one. Well, its actually quite an old one, but new to me and certainly to the children. Quite handily, it tied in with Chinese New Year. So, the craft just had to be... 'Chinese' lanterns!!

The finished article

I can't claim any credit fro the idea, we used a printable from Twinkle, a UK based teacher's resource site. It's full of great ideas. You have to register to use it. Some ideas are available for free, but for others you have to pay a subscription fee.

Incidentally, the song we decided to use alongside this activity was called, 'My ship sailed from China.' It has some great actions, so if children don't know the words, they can always join in with the actions. If you'd like to learn them, this clip from You Tube is quite handy.

Equipment:

• Paper cups 

• Pipe cleaners

• Stickers

• Paper strips

• PVA glue & glue spreaders

• Scissors with sharp points

Preparation:

1. Make two small holes in the top of each cup. I used the sharp points of scissors to do this.

2. Cut thin paper strips.

Method:

1. Show children how to thread both ends of a pipe cleaner through the two holes in the top of the cup. 

2. Look inside the cup and pull both ends of the pipe cleaner towards you and twist the ends together. 

3. Pull the loop at the top of the cup. The twisted ends should prevent the pipe cleaner from coming all the way back out.

4. Embellish the lantern with stickers of your choice.

5. Spread a line of PVA glue around the inside rim of the cup. Stick one end of the paper strips to the line of glue, to make a tasseled edge to your lantern.

6. If you, can, hang to dry.

Work in progress

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom Rocket Craft

This term, we're focusing on crafts linked to some of the songs we love to sing at coffee and snack time. One of the children's favourites. is 'Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, We're going to the Moon'. To be fair, it's one of my favourites too! 

The finished article

The craft is a simple one, that we first used for Bonfire Night, a few years ago. Now that some of our older ones have moved on, it seems the perfect time to revisit this craft.

Equipment:

• cardboard rolls (kitchen roll tubes, cut in half)

• coloured/shiny paper

• card circles with cut to the centre

• PVA glue/glue spreaders

• stickers

• shiny or brightly coloured paper

• curling ribbon

• washi tape/stickers/embellishments

• sellotape/scissors

Preparation:

• cut card circles

• cut coloured paper to cover tubes

• cut short lengths of curling ribbon

• collect cardboard rolls

Method:

1. Cover cardboard tube with coloured paper, using PVA glue to stick. *

2. Form paper circle into a cone, use tape or glue to fix overlapping parts together.

3. Apply glue to one end of the cardboard tube. Place the glued end into the paper cone and press into place.

4. Use sticky tape to fasten short lengths of curling ribbon into the other end of the cardboard tube.

5. Embellish the sides of the rocket, using stickers and washi tape.

6. Ensure each rocket is named, before being left on the 'Home' table to dry.

Work in progress

* Alternatively, you could paint the rocket, suing a mixture of PVA and poster paint, but you may run the risk of it still being quite wet by home time and also, it might be hard to apply some embellishments, although the glue in the paint might help them stick.