Easter Bunny Land

Lately the preschoolers have been into drawing, storytelling and small world play. These kinds of activities are a great way to build literacy skills, creative thinking AND develop all the fine motor skills needed for writing - plus it's just plain fun!

This project was actually a spin off of one of the other projects I had in mind for the kids.

I thought it would be fun to make bottle cap flowers and incorporate drawing / painting on foam to create a spring picture.

The kids had a couple different ideas such as angry monster faces (part of our Jack and The Beanstalk project) and ideas for mixed media collages so we decided that maybe we would use the materials in a couple of different ways.

As they worked these lovely little garden patches just sort of evolved. They were so much fun to create that everyone decided they wanted to make the same thing.

Materials: iridescent paint, foam blocks, pipe cleaners, tiny sparkly Easter eggs and flowers from a floral necklace that had fallen apart long ago. 

The process was simple. Each child chose the colors s/he liked to cover the surface of the foam then they made pipe cleaner flower stems and egg holders then pushed them into the foam.

When they were finished I placed them up on a display shelf to dry.

As I was fishing around for projects this morning I thought it might be fun to incorporate the garden patches into an Easter storytelling scene….

I added lots of little extras - some glass gemstones, battery operated twinkle lights and our fall trees brought to life by adding some spring flowers. When the children came in this morning they all admired the set up and looked to see if they could identify each child's flower patch around the bunny house. 

We discussed the importance of being careful with the art pieces as we worked so that nobody's artwork would be destroyed.

The children hid "magic gems" in the garden patches, made blankets for the bunnies from scraps of fabric and wove fanciful stories about the bunnies of bunny land.

Even though some of the stories were very animated, the children were thoughtful and respectful of the delicate foam pieces. As they worked they decided certain patches needed extra flowers or eggs to  fit the storyline they had conjured up so they took their own piece to the creative table where they made the necessary adjustments before continuing on in their storytelling.

What a perfectly lovely way to welcome spring!