Easter 2014 - a very belated post

I was going through my blog and I was shocked to see I'd forgotten to write a summary of our Easter last year. I posted a lot of ideas and activities on my facebook page, but no summary here whatsoever. I need to make up for this shortcoming.

A quick post in pictures...

Inexpensive Easter gift tags. After having taken them out of their basic sheet I photocopied them and stick a picture in each place. E. had to match them.

Washi tape/Decor tape eggs - I covered some egg-shape cutouts with colourful washi tapes and decor tapes. Then I laminated them and halved them in different ways. Also, I wrote numbers on them from 1-10. She loved this activity and I'm sure we'll do it this year too.

Easter basket - details in the pic

We painted some foam eggs. Additional fun with some beads and feathers. 

Concentration on full blast

Easter gift hunt in the playground nearby

Five minutes before my husband and daughter, I went to the playground and spread some gifts in the grass (as we have no garden this seemed to be the best solution for making an egg hunt happen)

Then they came and E. hunted

Ready for the hunt with the home-made basket

A magnetic drawing board

Spot's First Easter

Stickers

Opening an Easter (surprise) egg

Let's not forget about the Hungarian tradition: Easter sprinkling

All the presents E. hunted and got from the grandparents last Easter

I hope this little retrospection will give you some ideas for this Easter. For me it was great pleaseure to look back on what happened a year ago. I'll be back with more activities we're doing for this Easter.

Numbers I. - The bottle cap calculator

We've been playing a lot with numbers recently, so here is the first post about a calculator that is very easy to make and fun to practise numbers with.




I found this idea not long ago on another blog: Learn with play at home. And I decided to make it as E. LOVES playing with calculators. Sometimes she asks for it and pushes the buttons for 15-20 minutes all by herself saying the numbers and signs (both in Hungarian and in English).

The first calculator was dropped so many times its display went wrong so we bought another, more simple one.



My idea was that she could have her own calculator that suits her little fingers.

tools

 What you need:

• cardboard
• 16 bottle caps (in my version)
• scissors
• superglue (dries withing 10 seconds)
• markers and/or number stickers
• ruler
• a white sheet of paper

How to make it:

• cut the cardboard (first arrange the bottle caps to see how big you need to cut the board)
• stick or write the numbers and other signs on the caps
• draw the display with the help of the ruler and the marker
• glue the caps on the board

Sticking the caps on the cardboard is tough. I used superglue as the edge of the caps were very thin and I wanted them to dry quickly. (After few minutes of playing one of the caps came off, so this might not last as long as I wanted)

final result

The page I find this idea on also adds an extended version of the calculator game for those who have started learning to write. I'll introduce it later if E. still wishes to play with the bottle cap calculator.





Now she is enjoying it a lot.















I managed to record a video too, but it is too dark. If you have any ideas how to lighten it let me know and I'll attach it.

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I've been trying to lighten the video but I couldn't. Here is the dark video anyway.
But I also recorded another one with our native nanny today. They are playing with the new calculator.