1) Easter Party We have an Easter Party (any excuse will do),  and to prepare during the week we make an Easter cake,  make the decorations, fill the plastic eggs for the egg hunt,and learn all about bunnies.  The theme involves where they live, how many babies they can have, what they like to eat, how we can hop like them, etc.     For the party we play pin the tail (cotton ball) on the bunny.   Do a "Hop Like a Bunny, Waddle like a Duck" parade around the house which turns into The Easter Egg hunt.We enjoy our Easter Lunch:  EGG-salad sandwiches, carrot sticks, and pink milk.Followed by our Easter cake (bunny shape).We put the finishing touches on whatever projects we've made to give the parent's as gifts.And eventually we wind down to hibernate in out burrows for a needed rest.     2) Growing Easter Baskets   Supplies:   *Empty 1/2 gal. Milk Cartons   *Potting Soil   *Grass Seed (fast growing if you have it)   *Stuff to Decorate Carton   Take empty milk cartons, cut down to 4-5" high. Can cover with contact paper or construction paper and   decorate. Fill 2/3 full with potting soil, the generously cover with grass seed. Have children water daily;   grass should grow in about 4-7 days. With remaining carton, cut a handle to staple to the basket. Fill with   decorated eggs.   3) Easter Chicks   Supplies:   2 Cotton Balls   Orange and Black Construction Paper   Dry, Yellow tempera Paint   Glue   Empty, Clean Egg Shell   Put some of the paint in a Ziploc Bag, put in the 2 cotton balls and shake until they are yellow. Feet, eyes, and beaks can be cut from orange & black construction paper and glued on. Then you can glue the chick into half of the egg shell.   4) Egg Creatures   Supplies:   Eggs (not hard-boiled)   Sharp Nail   Glue   Misc. Supplies   Blow the contents from fresh eggs. Pierce each end of egg with sharp nail. Blow firmly into large end, over dish to catch egg liquid (which you can use for a recipe). Let shells dry. Decorate to resemble rabbits, chicks,   or cartoon characters using markers, paint, glued on construction paper, etc. To make stand upright: Cut =strip of sturdy paper 1/2 inch by 4-6 ins. Glue into circle, sit egg in it. This paper stand could also be incorporated into design as a collar.   5) Egg Decorating   Supplies:   Hard Boiled Eggs   Markers   Pass out hard boiled eggs to everyone at the table. Have each person draw a feature on the egg with felt tip markers. Continue passing the eggs until each egg has a face (eyes, cheeks, nose, mouth, ears, moles, eyelashes, chin, freckles, etc.).       6) Candle Eggs   Supplies:   Eggs (not hard boiled)   Sharp Nail   Old Candles or Parafin Wax   Wicks   Hollow out several eggs by gently poking a small hole in one end of each egg. Rinse clean and set the eggshell in the egg carton. Melt some old candles or paraffin wax and wax coloring in a double boiler over low heat. Place a funnel over the opening of the egg and carefully pour wax into the hollow eggshell in the carton. When the eggshell is full, insert a wired wick into the egg, centering it with a piece of tape for support. Allow the wax to cool and harden, then break off the shell and buff the candle with a soft rag. Heat the bottom end of the candle to soften, then press on a flat surface to make it stand up. or use a candle holder. Variations: You can use several different colors of wax, layering them. Let them cool between colors. Add glitter or metallic confetti to make the egg sparkle. Color the wax with old color crayons instead of buying wax coloring. BE SURE THE EGG SHELL IS DRY BEFORE FILLING IT!   7) Giant Easter Eggs   Supplies:   Balloon   Liquid Starch or Watered Down Glue   Large Paintbrushes   Crochet Thread   Blow up a balloon and tie a 2 ft. piece of thread to the bottom of it. Cover the entire balloon with starch or watered down glue, using a large paint brush. Wrap crochet thread around the balloon in one direction, leaving small gaps about 1/2 inch wide so the balloon isn't completely covered. Wrapping doesn't have to be perfect. Apply another light layer of starch or glue on top of the thread and wrap with another layer of crochet thread in another direction. Repeat one or more times until the balloon is covered with thread. Hang the balloon from the bottom thread to dry for about 24 hours. When fully dry, pop the balloon and gently pull it out of the thread. Hang the giant egg from the ceiling or place it in a giant easter basket.   Variations: Use multicolored thread or yarn. You can flatten the end of the egg by pressing on it gently so it will stand on end. Leave an intentional opening to set figurines and eggs/candy in. They are very pretty this way. Practical tips: Work quickly before the glue/starch dries or add more when necessary. Handle the egg with care after it dries, as it may cave in if you squish it.   8) Bunny Baskets   Supplies:   Empty, Clean Milk Carton   Construction Paper   Glue   Crayons or Markers   Bottom 1/3 of a milk carton. Staple a 1" strip across the top for a handle. Cut out bunny shapes; sitting up bunny - ears on top, round head and fat body. Make sure it is the width of the milk carton (a bit like the traditional cat drawing). Decorate the basket with paper chips (small pieces of paper cut or torn) and draw on bunny's face. You can also paint the basket with glue and dip it into a container of confetti. Glue on a   cotton ball on the opposite side of basket for bunny's tail.   9) Easter Bonnets   Supplies:   Paper Plate   Styrofoam Plates   Glue   Crayons or Markers   Misc Supplies   Make Easter bonnets from styrofoam soup bowls staped to paper plates that have the center cut out of them. Let the children decorate them as desired. Supply them with cut out flowers, ribbon, and anything else you like   10) Rabbit Head Bands   Supplies:   Construction Paper   Glue   Cut out a strap long enough to fit around childs head. Cut rabbit ears, using white and pink construction paper. Glue or staple onto the strap, and make it into a head band.   11) Colored Eggs   Supplies:   Colored Eggs   Tissue Paper or Crepe Paper   Wet the egg and place pieces of colored tissue paper on it. Set it aside to dry. When the egg dries the tissue paper falls off and the colors stay behind.   12) Filter Paper Eggs   Supplies:   Coffee Filters   Food Coloring   Eye Droppers and Straws   Precut egg shapes out of coffee filters. Mix water and yellow foodcoloring and place mixture in a baby food jar. Do the same for blue. Letthe children use eyedroppers or straws to drip colors on the filter shape. The colors will run together and make beautiful eggs.   13) Barefoot Chick   Supplies:   Yellow Paint   construction Paper   Crayons   Glue   Cornmeal   Paint (giggling allowed!) the bottom of the child's foot with yellow washable liquid paint. Have him press his foot onto a sheet of construction paper. When the child's foot is clean and the paint is dry, have him use crayons to add an eye, beak, and legs to his chick. Finally have him spread glue along the bottom of the paper, then sprinkle the glue with cornmeal.   14) Cottony lambs   Supplies:   Black construction Paper   Cotton Balls   White Chalk   Have the child trace their hands on the black paper. Cut these out, placing the "hands" upside down so that the four fingers are the legs and the thumb is the head. Have the kids glue cotton balls to the "body". Use chalk or construction paper or whatever to make the eyes.   15) Lambs   Supplies:   White Paper   Black Paint   Glue   Packing Popcorn, etc.   Use black paint on the hands and stamp them on a white piece of paper, then decorate. The lambs look cute with packing "popcorn" or white paper reinforcements make great "wool". Also, left-over batting or stuffing can be used.   16) Bunnies in the Grass   Supplies:   White Paper   Crayons   Glue   Pom-poms or cotton balls   Have dck color a white sheet of paper all green (scribbling is just perfect) that have them glue on 10-15 1/2" pom poms or pieces of cotton balls - wa la you now have "Baby Bunnies Hiding in the Grass!!"   17) Bunny Basket   Supplies:   2 Lt. Pop Bottle   Felt   Wiggle Eyes   Glue   Pom-pom or cotton ball   Take a clear 2 lt. pop bottle take off the bottom support if there is one. Cut the bottle in half so you remove the opening. Next cut down on the bottle till there is about 3-4" left which will be the body. Move left or   right about 4-5" and cut down the same distance. Remove this section that is loose. Go to the opposite side and diagonally cut two pointed ears (don't cut them off). Cut out pink felt and glue on to the plastic ears. Glue on eyes (wiggle or paper), pink triangle felt nose (or paper) with little strips of white paper to resemble wiskers. Don't forget the cotton ball or white pompom for the tail! Fill with easter grass.   18) Styrofoam Eggs   Supplies:   Styrofoam Eggs   Paint   Push Pins   Misc. Craft Items   We took big styrofoam eggs and painted them. THen we used little jems from the craft store, like the kind for making jewelry and crafts. We used the flower shaped ones. Get a bunch of pins, the kind with the ball. When inserted through the plastic things, they look like little flowers. Cover the egg in these.     19) Hand Chicks   Supplies:   Construction Paper   Glue   Cut out some yellow egg shapes about 6 inches long. Trace the kids hands on yellow paper and cut them out. Have your kids add faces to their chicks and add their cut-out hands (one on each side). I cut out little eyes, and a beak and had them glue them on. You can also add feet if you like!   20) Songs/Fingerplays Inside Eggs!   I wrote songs and fingerplays on little pieces of paper and inserted them into tiny plastic easter eggs.  At circle time each child had a chance to choose an egg and we did what it said.  Then I put a little treat in each egg when we were finished.                                       21) Easter Baskets   Each child had a plastic "tote carrier basket" (The ones with handles and have open squares in them)  We used pretty cloth ribbon  (with colored eggs on it) to weave in and out - all around the basket.  Then they chose stickers (some puffy) to put on the top by the rim.  I put pastel colored tissue paper in the bottom and filled with Easter grass. They were easy for them to handle and great for our Easter egg hunt.   22) Pin the tail on the bunny   Just like the donkey birthday game, we played the bunny version, and blind folded the kids , (good for 4's and 5's) spun them around, and using a cotton ball with tape on it, they tried to put the bunnies tail on.  We didn't do any type of reward to the one getting the closest, just had fun watching the kids try to put it on!    23) Egg color matching   using the [plastic eggs, I take them and seperate with all the different   colors, and let the kids try to put them all back together, we talk about all the different colors while doing this.    24) Another version   Using an empty egg carton, number 1-12 inside, then number each plastic   egg 1-12/ try to have the children put the eggs into the correct spot.   1 step further... place jelly beans inside each egg matching the correct   number of it.  Just hope the jelly beans stay inside long enough to be   counted!!!    25) Egg roll   tape the floor with masking tape, and have the children push the eggs   with their noses across the floor, or try to have them use spoons or   anything else you can think of to move them along.    26) chick on a stick   take 2 small circles (yellow) and glue together like a chicks body, (head and body).  Glue on a black beak, two wiggley eggs, or just dot with black marker for eyes, and two chick feet, then tape on the back a yellow feather.  Have the children finish by gluing onto a popcicle stick.  there you have it.  A chick on a stick.!    27) Another version of an Easter egg hunt   Since the children are searching always for eggs and candy, and by   Sunday are usually up to their noses in it, I came up with an idea a couple of years ago to have a color crayon hunt.  We decorate plain lunch sack bags for our baskets, and then I go out and sprinkle the ground with new color crayons, (there are generic brands out there that you can purchase at a good price and get quite a lot of crayons) . The children have fun going out and searching for the crayons.  Then i make up coloring books from just ditto'd pages of easter things.  Each child then gets to take home an easter coloring book and new crayons to color from me.  I usually do this late friday afternoon.    28) Chant Eggs   Have enough plastic eggs for each child in the class and one for yourself. In each egg, put a small rubber or plastic animal or insect that hatches from eggs. ie. fish, snake, turtle, ant, bee, chicken, spider, etc.  At circle time, give each child an egg and ask them to open it secretly and see what's inside but not tell anyone.  Next begin chanting in rhythm with the children helping you:  An egg, an egg, what kind of egg?  (still in rhythm say what kind of egg you have)  A spi-der egg.  (Everyone echos this) A spi-der egg. Continue chanting:  An egg, an egg, Jenny, what kind of egg?  (Next child says:  a chick-en egg (everyone echos)  a chick-en egg.  Well, I think you got the idea.  Continue chanting, inserting childrens' names until all the children have shared the contents of their egg.   29) Easter Bunny Footprints!   Posterboard   Markers   Tape   1 Big Foot     1. Trace a footprint onto the posterboard   2. Cut out   3. Color the outline with markers and add "Feet" features to the foot   4. Put tape on the back of the footprints and tape to floor, to look as though the Easter Bunny arrived and left footprints!     If you want these to last for years, laminate them, or put contact paper on them. I usually take the Children to the gym and when we get back they see the footprints. Or you can have your assistant put them in the hallway during class. So when the parent's arrive and the children leave they will see the footprints.   30) B-U-N-N-Y   Hi , this is a Idea you may use all year around. For easter I use the word "BUNNY" insted of bingo. The song goes like this.        I know a rabbit with pink long ears        and BUNNY is its name -o        B U N N Y  B U N N Y  B U N N Y        and BUNNY is its name -o    Then I Make 5 pictures of pink eared bunnies and place them in a row on a piece of tag-board. I cover each bunny with a index card with each letter on it. Attaching the card on top of the tag board with tape to be able to flip the card over to show the bunny. This tells the kids the number of claps they have to make.   31) Clay Easter Eggs   Many people decorate eggs and  give them as gifts.  They are sign of new life and represent the springtime rebirth of nature.  Tell the children that they are going to make their own brightly-colored Easter or "Springtime" Eggs.       You Need:   6 cups water                                      12 cups baking soda   6 cups cornstarch                              food coloring   heavy sauce pan                                wooden spoon   pastel paints   This recipe should be enough for 12 children.     1.  Make cornstarch clay mixing water, soda, and cornsatch in saucepan/ Cook over low heat, stirring with wooden spoon until mixture becomes thick.  Add afew drops of food coloring and knead cool dough until it becomes smooth.   2. Give each child enough clay to make an egg-shaped ball, Let clay air-dry thoroughly before painting.   3.  Disribute pastel paintes and allow children to paint their eggs any way they choose   32) Paper plate rabbits:   we used a small white paper plate and a large white paper plate.  Glued the face parts, ie. nose, whiskers, eyes, nose, ears to the small paper plate. Then we glued on a tail feet to the large paper plate.  Then we glued both together.  Voila, cute and very individual rabbits!   33) Sock rabbits:   we collected a used white sock from each child and stuffed it with stuffing. Then we glued on ears, nose, and eyes.  We let the children use permanent pens to make the  whiskers.  We also tied off the end of the sock to make a tail.   34) Matching Rabbits:   We used rabbit erasers, from Oriental Trading catalog, to sort and count. We took plastic eggs and wrote numerals 1 - 10 on them.  Then they placed the correct amount of rabbits in the eggs.     35) Chick Puppet   Supplies:   *Yellow Cottonball or Pom-pom   *Glue   *Popsicle Stick   *Construction Paper Scraps   A Cute stick puppet or decoration for Easter. Start by glueing a yellow cottonball or pom-pom onto a popsicle stick. Punch hole with a hole punch out of black paper for eyes, and a diamond shape of orange for a beak-fold the diamond in half. Glue on eyes and beak. Make a bunch of them to fill a basket and read the little red hen.   36) TABLES:    Cover tables with butcher paper.. Make sure all of the table is covered... You will need regular kitchens sponges cut into shapes.... LIKE  egg, easter basket, rabbit, chicks, and a rectangle.  These shapes can be 2 inches big. or smaller.  you will also need tempra paint.  I took the rectangle sponge and dipped it in green paint..  I made a border all the way around the edge of the table.  The was the "grass"....  I next then took the other sponges with various colors and made a scene on top of the grass...  I did this all the way around the edge of the table.. The center was left blank so I could put a flower arrangment on it.  I did these tables ahead of time because they do take awhile to do..  37) NAPKIN HOLDER    I then decorated my tables with easter plates and cups and napkins.  I took the napkins and rolled then up..   i took that nylon thread and a needle and I strung jelly beans on the thread..  I made a napkin holder using jelly beans....  It took about 6 jelly beans per holder. 38) FLOWER ARRANGEMENT    I took a small plastic flower pot and a piece of pastel flower print material.  I cut it into a square.  I layed the material on the table and put the pot in the center of the material.. I folded the edges up over the edge of the pot. I inserted a piece of flower foam to help hold the material on the pot.   I made flowers from muffin papers and pipe cleaners.    I took the muffin papers and folded them like a fan,  I believe I used 4 papers per flower.  I took the papers and put the pipe cleaner around it.  I then unfolded the papers making a flower shape.    40) Books     The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes - DuBois Heyward - No one gave her much encouragement, but pluck and persistence are rewarded when a little country bunny finally becomes an Easter Bunny.     Everything About Easter Rabbits - Wiltrud Roser - Everything you ever wanted to know about the habits of the genuine original Easter Rabbit.     Bently & Egg - by William Joyce   If You Were My Bunny - by Kate McMullan   The Easter Chicks - by Repchuck/Harland   Easter Egg Fun - Ursula Muhr   Pooh!  Oh Bother!  It's the Easter Bunny - Nancy Parent   What Is Easter? - Lillie James   Spot's First Easter - Eric Hill   Little Mouse Meets the Easter Bunny - Harriet Ziefert   Easter Yolks - Katy Hall