April Crafts
If you're looking for children's activities that revolve around a month, April is pretty easy! Depending on the year, you can do a lot of activities around Easter, "April Showers bring May flowers," April is National Frog Month, and The last Friday in April is also Arbor Day.
Here are some of my favorite April Crafts and Activities:
Handprint Flowers - Dip child's hand in paint and stamp near the top of a piece of construction paper. This is the bud or flower part of the flower. Now stamp the child's feet to make the leaves. Draw in a stem. Don't forget to date it!
Cut Flower Stamps - Gather a variety of flowers. Dip flower in paint and stamp it onto paper.
Grass Hair People - Draw a face on a styrofoam cup using paper, paint, markers, etc. Let dry if necessary. Fill the cup with a few small rocks for drainage and potting soil. Sprinkle grass seed and cover with a light layer of soil. When your grass grows, it will look like hair for the face on the cup. If it gets too long you can cut it with scissors.
Flowers Bookmarks - This craft is super simple for kids of all ages. Simply cut out pictures of flowers and glue them onto a bookmark sized piece of paper. We adapted this idea to create our own Spring flower pictures instead of bookmarks. Four year olds just don't have much use for bookmarks.
Fishing Pond - I did this project with my son because he had a fishing pole set with a magnet at the end of the fishing line to "catch" four plastic fish that came with the set. As you might imagine, it got kind of boring to catch the same four fish all the time... so we made a bunch of fish out of pipe cleaners by simply crossing the two ends of the pipe cleaners and twisting them to make a fish with a tail.
Then we created a large pond in the living room by laying out pieces of blue construction paper on the floor in a somewhat circular shape. We used long pieces of yarn to define the edge of the "pond" and a bucket from the sandbox to put our fish when we caught them. It was a great way to "go fishing" on a rainy day.
You could make your own fishing poles by using a cardboard tube from wrapping paper. Use a piece of yarn or string for the fishing line and tie it to one end of the tube. Then tie a magnet to the other end of the line (a refridgerator magnet would work well if there is a way to tie it on the fishing pole).
Potted Tulips - Cut a tulip shape out of construction paper and
glue it to the end of a large craft stick. Cut a slit in the
bottom of a strofoam cup and push the craft stick through so
that it looks like the tulip is growing out of the "pot". You
can turn this into a learning project by talking with your child
about all the things that a tulip needs to grow. Then push the
tulip down into the "pot" and slowly push it back up to pretend
it's growing. You could do this with any kind of flower... it doesn't have to be a tulip.
Blossom - Simple craft for young children - need twig or stick (even more fun if child finds twig themselves). Cut up tissue paper into small pieces (use white/pink or crimsom depending on what colour blossom you want). Pour small amount of PVA glue in bowl and cover work surface before starting!!! Scrunch up each piece of tissue paper and dip in PVA glue - stick tissue paper onto twig to create blossom and allow to dry. I have done this craft every spring now with my kids and also at a mother and toddler group (I had to collect 40 twigs for that) and all the kids love it. ~ Submitted by Julie
Paper Plate Streamer Rings - I don't have a good title for this little craft, but the kids enjoyed playing with it. Cut the middle out of a paper plate so that you have a ring. You can decorate the ring if you want to, but it's really not necessary. Then staple crepe paper streamers around three quarters of the ring on the outside. The kids then hold onto the ring at the spot without any streamers and run in the breeze. You can also use ribbon, strips of paper, or yarn instead of streamers.
Toilet Paper Tube Bunny - What would Easter be without at least one toilet paper tube craft? This one is really easy... I've even included templates for the bunny parts to make it super simple.
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