Painting Bird Houses

One of my favorite Spring activities to do with my daughter is paint bird houses. They make such a cute decoration for indoors or outdoors in the Spring time, and if you put them outside you just might get to see some real birds hanging out. Observing nature is always fun for kids, and being outside enjoying nature actually reduces stress levels in kids. 

This is the first bird house my daughter painted. I purchased both of the wooden bird houses from Michael's. They had varying sizes, ones with hooks and ones without. The choice is yours. I wanted to keep ours inside so the hanging factor didn't matter much to me, but if you want to put yours in a tree you may want to opt for that.

If you're interested in the paint smock it's also from Michael's, and the flower paint tray is from Hobby Lobby.

I let her pick the colors she wanted, squirted them in her paint tray, and let her get to it. I emphasized covering the whole thing in paint and made sure to ask her if she wanted other colors for other parts and we talked about how she was designing it.

Then she painted a littler one, and she asked for white paint, metallic purple, and sparkly party paint (all tempera paints from Michael's). They made a beautiful combination.

If you're wanting to put your bird houses outside you'll probably want to spray them with some sort of finishing spray to help the paint stay on.

Chicky Foot Print Craft

This is similar to my last post, but very different because although we're using the same type of toy for this Easter painting activity, we're using it in a much different way. We didn't wind this one up and let it go to make a trail like we did with the bunny. We just dipped it's feet in paint and made prints with it the way you would anything else. They turned out adorable!

All you need for this is a wind up toy chick (they sell them at Target, and probably Dollar Tree, as well as other places I'm sure), a paper plate, orange tempera paint, and some white paper.

 You just put some paint on the plate so that your little one will be able to dip the chicks feet in and make their prints.

Hilarious Hopping Bunny Trail Painting

Have you ever gotten on of those bunnies that they sell around Easter time that you can wind up and they hop all over the place? They are too great to pass up. They always make my little one laugh so hard, and she laughed even more when it was leaving a bunny trail during this paint activity.

All you need for this activity is one of the hopping bunnies (they can be found at Target, and I think the Dollar Store, and probably a variety of other places as well), a paper plate, some white paper, and any color you'd like of washable tempera paint. My daughter chose pink for ours.

All you do is lay out the white paper on the table or whatever hard, flat surface you have for your bunny to hop on. Then you squirt some of the paint onto the paper plate in a little puddle that you can dip the bunnies feet into. Once you've done that you wind it up and set it on the paper. It will start hopping all over leaving a trail of paint behind it!

My daughter just loved this activity. I bet your kids would too! It's the perfect fun time Easter craft!

Watching the Rain Paint

Watching the rain make beautiful art that they helped to make is such a fun Spring activity for kids.

When it's about to rain you go outside with a piece of white paper and some food coloring bottles and let your little one put some droplets of color around the paper. Then go inside, watch it rain on the paper and make beautiful art!

Spring Bento Box

Since today was the first day of Spring I put together this Spring Bento Box for my daughter. 

To make it I used her laptop lunchbox, and my PopChef.

In the first section I have two flower shaped organic pb&j sandwiches, topped with sun shaped dutch goat cheese. I also added a heart shaped dutch goat cheese, all made with the PopChef. I folded up a paper towel and put it in that section to prop up the sandwiches a little bit so they could be seen better. Also because a paper towel is needed with lunch.

The second section has a special treat in it. Annie's Organic fruit snacks. They were perfect for the theme being shaped like bunnies.

The third section has Annie's Organic bunny shaped mac and cheese.

The fourth section has raspberries and halved green grapes.

Spring Garden Bath

Spring isn't here yet, but soon enough it will be. So I'm going to share a Spring Garden themed bath with you today!

Now, for this bath I did not use the bath paint I normally make. I just used washable tempera paint to decorate the tub, it washes off so when I'm trying to paint a specific scene with detail I use that instead because it's easier to use than the shaving cream kind.

So, I used blue to paint the little bit at the top to make it look kind of like a sky, orange and red for the butterfly, bright green, yellow, pink, and purple for the flowers.

I made the water green with neon green food coloring to make it look like grass.

To the side of the tub for bath time play and to make the bath come to life I added some artificial flowers, plastic flower pots, and a couple shovels. The flowers and pots can be purchased at Dollar Tree, and the shovels came with her sandbox.

Fairy Garden (sensory play, pretend play, outdoor play)

I am absolutely in love with this fairy garden that I made for my daughter! We had been gathering the supplies for it all April, and then ended up putting it together on Easter. I wanted to make her this Fairy Garden so she could do some digging in the dirt, some pretend play with her fairies, pretend to plant the flowers, move around some loose parts, and have something she could do beside me while I tend to our garden. 

I found that perfect pot for it at Menards, and filled it up with the dirt! 

The materials I used for inside of it were all purchased from Hobby Lobby and Dollar Tree (aside from the aquarium gems which some are from Pet Co, some have came in holiday sets from Hobby Lobby). I think the gems really add to it though, since they're loose parts that are intriguing for imaginative play. They also sparkle very pretty in the sunlight. We use the black ones for around the house and stepping stones. The green ones can look like grassy areas, and the orange ones we put on the tables to be tea and crumpets.

 Here's another picture with everything included. The bridge wasn't in the last picture.

All things from Hobby Lobby were in one aisle, so getting these items doesn't require much searching. I purchased over $100 worth of items there that day and only ended up spending about $60 because of a great coupon I had. I think it was well worth it. From that aisle we got the house, mushrooms, flower bed, bridge, 3 fairies, bench, tables, and fencing.

The things I added from the Dollar Tree were the artificial flowers and rocks.

There's just another view, without the bridge again.

My daughter likes to play with the fairies and they have tea parties and their tables, water the flowers, etc.

She also likes to take the fairy items out sometimes and really get to digging and getting dirty with her minnie mouse shovel and cultivator from Toys R Us. I also give her a big bucket so she can transfer/scoop and pour the dirt when she wants too. She can also pretend to plant the artificial flowers again and again.

I think this is great outdoor fun for any child. I'm always looking for things to do outside so we can spend more time out there. If you don't want your sons playing with fairies, this could be made more "boyish" by using gnomes instead of fairies (also found in the same aisle at Hobby Lobby).

How To Make Pet Rocks

Aren't these adorable little friends to make as a fun Spring or Summer outdoor craft? Not only are they cute, they can also help kids become ready to have a real live pet. Pretending to take care of these can teach some responsibility and make kids feel like they're doing something important.

To make these all you'll need is:
- As many rocks as you want
- Glue
- Googly eyes

We picked a few rocks we thought would make cute pets from our backyard, and then we glued some googly eyes to them. It couldn't be more simple to put them together. My daughter loves to see them on display in our classroom/play room and check on them often!

Painting With Nature

Spring is an excellent time of the year to discuss things in nature, and to go on walks. If you ever go on a walk with your child you can collect a few things along the way that you think they'd like to paint with. Painting with things other than their fingers or a brush is really fun and engaging for them. We gathered some different things and I'm not sure what to call them! Interesting parts of the grass, things from trees, things found on the ground that are part of nature..anything works!

My daughter wanted to use orange and yellow paint. I had it on a paper plate, and gave her a sheet of finger paint paper and all our nature objects with it and allowed her to get creative! It turned out beautifully.