Easter/Spring Basket

We aren’t a chocolate free house but Luath (and us) don’t need big chocolate eggs so I thought I would make up a Easter/Spring  basket instead,  mostly with items that we would be giving to Luath or ourselves anyway.
 
I lined a basket with a green tea towel that we use for play. The basket contains a child size hand fork and trowel, some seeds (sunflower, carrot, wildflowers), some garden gloves (too big but I plan to adapt once Luath tries them on), a terracotta sheep that you can grow grass on, a chew treat for the dog and a mandarin orange (Christmas stockings must have a citrus fruit so Easter baskets will too).

We are doing an egg hunt and the basket will be at the end.  Hoping we can use the gardening gear soon.
(Luath is 26 months)

Peg dolls- Easter bunny and chick

I thought it would try to make a bunny and chick to give to Luath for Easter (I gave them to her for the Spring Equinox instead).  Luath insists that the chick is a duck, but that is fine.

They have settled in well to the table centrepiece.  After at least one meal a day, one or more items from the display are taken off to play or investigate.  I enjoy this interactive element.  Sometimes we talk about Spring and what each item is/means, but often the animals/characters are talking to us or each other.
 
(Luath is 26 months)

Outdoors - Signs of Spring Spotting

We have been enjoying looking for some signs of Spring.  We joined in a RSPB Wild Square survey last month, listening to bird song and following submitting our results Luath received a Wild square pack.  Included in the folder was a year calendar with some stickers of things to look out for throughout the year (i.e. first daffodil, first conker, wakening to bird song).  Luath loves stickers and would have happily added everyone on the sheet.  It took a little while (a few days) but she finally started talking about seeing things so she could use the stickers.  She did keep showing me the daffodil we made for St. David’s Day so she could use that sticker!

Finally this week we saw some real daffodils and snowdrops.  I said we could get out the Wild square calendar.  Luath replied “but we haven’t seen a frog” (there is a frogspawn sticker).  I am writing the date next to the stickers so we can compare in future years.

The Wild Square survey for March and April is “Looking for the signs of Spring”.  We will do it later this month, but I have photographed the survey and a early spring list download from the nature detectives so we can do our spring watch whenever we are out and about without needing to carry sheets.

So far we have spotted some flowers – daisy, crocuses, daffodils, snowdrops.
 
Leaf buds on a fallen branch in the woods.
Birds carrying nesting material and birds singing.
A lamb (way too early for here but it looked well)

We are looking forward for all the other Spring arrivals.  If you live in the UK the RSPB Wild Square survey is free and very easy to complete. Once you submit your first results they send a wildsquare pack.  I had to register Luath as being older than she is (they don't have her birth year on the website) but she definitely can help while we complete the survey.
(Luath is 25 months)

Shared with The Spring & Easter activities for kids hosted by Rainy Day Mum and The Magic of Play

Bird's Nest from sticky wool

I saw this on The Imagination Tree blog.  Luath can be a bit hit and miss with sticky hands, but I thought we would give it a go.

You need some wool cut into short strips.  PVA glue.  A nest shape mould.

Cover the wool with glue – I put the wool into a tub, we squeezed the glue over it and gave it a good mix.  I separated the wool into colours and tried to separate the strands.  My plan was for me to use only the brownish wool to make a next for our Spring table centrepiece and that Luath could use whichever colours she wished.  Luath picked up the strands in four big clumps, stuck them onto her mould’s outisde and said “You can do it yourself”.  So I am guessing she wasn’t too impressed!
 
The two moulds were left to try on the windowsill. They dried quickly as it was a sunny day and we had the radiator on.  I am not sure Luath’s nest would retain the egg for long but it is colourful.  I quite like the fact that the are messy, although most real bird’s nest look so much neater.
 
I have added the brown next to our Spring table centrepiece.  Luath’s colourful nest is on display on the windowsill.
 
(Luath is 25 months)