Easter at The Virtual Vine

Everything I Need To Know I Learned From The Easter Bunny

Don't put all of your eggs in one basket.

Walk softly and carry a big carrot.

Everyone needs a friend who is all ears.

There's no such thing as too much candy.

All work and no play can make you a basket case.

A cute little tail attracts a lot of attention.

Everyone is entitled to a bad hare day.

Let happy thoughts multiply like rabbits.

Some body parts should be floppy.

Keep your paws off other people's jellybeans.

The grass is always greener in someone else's basket.

An Easter bonnet can tame even the wildest hare.

To show your true colors you have to come out of your shell.

The best things in life are still sweet and gooey!

~Author Unknown~

Coordinating Unit:

Peter Rabbit

Easter Pocketchart Activity: This idea is a spin off of the Jack-O-Happy pocketchart activity that Victoria has on her Kinder Korner website. Instead of using Jack-O- Happy, I changed it to Chocolate Bunny.

This is Chocolate Bunny happy.
This is Chocolate Bunny sad.
This is Chocolate Bunny sleepy.
This is Chocolate Bunny mad.
This is Chocolate Bunny in pieces small,
But in my tummy he’s best of all.

When we did our Pumpkin Unit, we used the Jack-O-Happy poem and the kids loved it. So I created the Chocolate Bunny poem and the kids loved it. To use it in the pocketchart, write each line of the poem on a sentence strip and place it in the chart. In front of the sentence, put a picture matching the sentence strip. You can utilize clip art pictures, or draw them yourself. Luckily, my TA at the time did great drawings and I had her do mine. We also make a book to go along with it so that each student will have a copy for their Book Boxes. (For more info on Book Boxes see Literacy Connections)

(*this bunny pattern is from The Mailbox Pre/K Feb/Mar 1991)

After repeated rereadings, the students will be able to read or recite the poem on their own. I also make a second set of sentence strips for the poem and cut apart the individual words. The students can then have practice in matching the words. I use two different color sentence strips, alternating the colors in the text. For instance, if the sentence “This is Chocolate Bunny happy.” is in pink, then this same sentence in the second set of sentence strips would be pink. The next sentence "This is Chocolate Bunny sad." would be in green in both sets of sentence strips. This helps to narrow down the choices the students have to choose from when matching the text. You could use nice Easter colors for the sentence strips if you have them such as pink, green, yellow, blue.

Victoria does something similar, but she uses one color sentence strips and two different colors of markers. This would work as well.

You can also use this activity for practicing sequencing the sentences in the pocketchart, and matching the pictures to the correct sentence. The students could practice sequencing just the pictures as well, without the sentence strips.

Here are some of the pages from our book:

”Egg”traordinary Activities: If you have access to the egg Ellison die-cuts, you can make many types of matching games. Ellison has not only a “whole” egg, but one that’s “cracked” into two pieces. You can use these to cut out eggs in pastel colors and program them for different matching activities. If you’re using the whole egg, you can match two eggs. If you’re using the cracked egg, you can match the two halves.

Matching activities:
~ using the whole egg die-cut, create an activity where the students will match colors. Cut two eggs for each color; laminate. Or, you can use the cracked egg and have them match halves.

~ using the whole egg die-cut, cut a white egg for however many colors you teach. Then cut one colored egg for every color. Program each white egg with a color word; laminate all eggs. The students will match the color words to the correct color eggs.

~ use the cracked egg die-cut to make matching activities for addition/subtraction facts, compound words, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, rhyming words/pictures, initial sounds to pictures, capital letters to lowercase

~ you can also program the whole eggs with words for students to put into alphabetical order

*”Egg”ceptional Math Activities: Making Math mats for Easter is very easy, especially if you have access to a graphics program, clip art, or can purchase Easter notepads. Mini Easter erasers and small Easter toys make “egg-cellent” :) counters for these.

~ Photocopy an egg shape onto pastel colored construction paper (you’ll need however many copies for numbers that you’ve covered [1-10] or [1-20]). Program each egg with a number, decorate, cut out, and mount onto cardstock or another color construction paper; laminate. The students will count out the correct number of math manipulatives to match the number on the egg. <fuzzy baby chick counters would be precious with these>

~ Photocopy a large Easter basket onto construction paper or cardstock. Color the baskets brown. Program the page with a number (same directions as above); laminate. Use the Ellison die-cut to cut out small ovals from pastel colored construction paper; make sure you cut out enough eggs to match the number of baskets that you have. For instance, if you’re working on 1-10, you’ll need 55 eggs. Decorate the eggs if you’d like; laminate. The students count out the correct number of eggs to match the number on the page and place the eggs “in” the basket and/or around the bottom. Also, instead of making the egg counters, you can also use mini-egg erasers if you have them available.

~ You can also make Math mats for addition quite easily if you’re working on basic addition facts. I came up with this idea when I had a student who couldn’t count out her bears and keep them in two separate groups … they always ended up getting mixed together. She needed a way to define the space for each group.

Anyway, to make the mat, you need two copies of the same thing. For instance, the ones that I made last year, I used a graphics pic of grass. I set up the graphics page to have the same picture side by side on the page with a small space inbetween. In the space, I inserted a plus (+) sign. I printed them on cardstock and had them laminated. When the students are doing a Math addition activity, they get out the mats and put the number of counters for the first number in the first picture, and the counters for the second number in the other picture. (Ex. [4 + 6 = ] 4 rabbits in the first picture, and 6 rabbits in the second picture) I make two different kinds of each mat … some for vertical problems, and some for horizontal problems. The students choose whichever kind they need.

The Math mat on the left is the one written about above. The rabbits are notepads that have the numbers programmed on the rabbit's foot.
They are laminated and the kids count out the correct number of carrots to match the number.

You could do the same thing with Easter baskets, eggs, etc. The picture on your mat might depend on what kind of manipulatives that you have to go with it. I’m going to make some using baskets this year to go with some mini egg erasers that I have. We could also use the eggs with the grass mats.

The picture below is of an activity that we photocopied out of a book, colored, and laminated. We photocopy these activities on cardstock to make them even more durable. The students count the objects on the egg and match it to the correct rabbit.

Drop the Carrot: Buy a carrot and have your students seated in a circle. One student gets to hold the carrot and hop around the outside of the circle. At some point, they drop the carrot into the lap of one of the students in the circle and hop quickly away. The student who now has the carrot hops around the circle chasing the first child who is hopping to try and get back into the students seat before being caught.

Jellybean Bingo: Make Jellybean Bingo cards for practice in color recognition. Draw one jellybean in each square (or you could draw a pile all one color) and color it. Call out the colors, and if a student has a jellybean that color on their card, then they place a jellybean on it. The first person to cover their card wins! Of course, everyone gets to eat their jellybeans at the end.

Easter Take-Home Activity: Send an egg pattern photocopied onto cardstock or white construction paper home with each student. The student and their family works together to decorate their egg using whatever materials they have on hand. Once the eggs are returned back to school, they can be used to decorate a bulletin board or displayed in the hallway. Every time I’ve ever sent home a project like this, I’m amazed at the creativity that is used in decorating the item.

Easter Bulletin Board: To use the decorated eggs from above for a bulletin board, you could display them as being hidden in 3D grass. Cover the lower part of a bulletin board in green paper (grass), the top half in light blue (sky). Add sprigs of 3D grass by cutting strips or clumps of grass from more green bulletin board paper and stapling it to the “grass” already on the bulletin board. Add a big Easter bunny, flowers, a sun and maybe some butterflies, along with the students’ eggs hidden in the grass. Possible caption: Hippity, Hoppity, Easter’s On It’s Way!

You could also display their eggs in a HUGE basket on a bulletin board. Pile the eggs in the basket with some scattered around the bottom of the basket. You could even use real Easter basket grass to glue around the top of the basket like it’s stuffed and falling out.

Cute Chick: Photocopy a big egg onto yellow construction paper. Trace each student’s hands (both of them). Have the students cut out the egg and their hands and glue one hand to each side of the egg to form wings for the chick. Add wiggly eyes and an orange triangle shaped beak.

I’m An Easter Bunny
I’m an Easter Bunny, watch me hop, (hop around)
Here are my two ears, see how they flop. (hold hands at sides of head and flop them)
Here is my cotton tail, here is my nose, (wiggle hips, then point to nose)
I’m all furry from my head to my toes. (point to head, then to toes)
Author Unknown

Five Hopping Bunnies
Five hopping bunnies, white is what they wore,
One hopped away, then there were four.
Four hopping bunnies, sweet as they could be,
One hopped around the yard, then there were three.
Three hopping bunnies with so much to do,
One went for Easter eggs, then there were two.
Two hopping bunnies, playing in the sun,
One hopped down a hole, then there was one.
One hopping bunny, cute as a penny,
Hopped into my basket, then there weren’t any.
Author Unknown

Easter Rabbit
I saw a rabbit, (wiggle two fingers up behind head)
I said hello. (wave hand)
He didn’t stop, (shake head)
He went down a hole. (poke finger into opposite fist)

Now don’t you fret, (shake pointer finger)
You might see one too --- (nod head)
An Easter rabbit, (wiggle two fingers up behind head)
With some eggs for you! (hold out cupped hands)
Author Unknown

I’m The Easter Bunny
I’m the Easter Bunny, soft and white, (point to self)
Here are my ears, (wiggle two fingers up behind head)
And my tail so light. (hold fist behind back)
I hide Easter eggs all over town, (pretend to hide eggs)
Just watch me hop and hop around. (hop)
Author Unknown

Two Easter Baskets
Two Easter baskets,
Under a tree.
One for you, (form left fist with thumb inside)
And one for me. (form right fist with thumb inside)

I peeked in one basket,
And what did I see? (look down at left fist)
A new baby chick,
Smiling at me!

Then I looked in the other,
And what do you think? (look down at right fist)
Out popped a bunny,
Quick as a wink! (pop right thumb out of fist)
Author Unknown

Hunting for Eggs
Hunting for eggs
Under my bed,
I found one in a slipper,
And the egg was colored red.

Hunting for eggs,
Now I have two,
I found one in the closet,
And the egg was colored blue.

Hunting for eggs,
What a lucky fellow,
I found one in a bucket,
And the egg was colored yellow.

Hunting for eggs
Where none could be seen,
I found one in a shoe box,
And the egg was colored green.

Hunting for eggs,
Quick as a wink,
I found one in the garden,
And the egg was colored pink.

Red and yellow,
Green, pink, and blue.
I found five eggs –
How about you?
Author Unknown

Easter Time
Easter time at last is here,
Bunnies, chickies – let us cheer! (clap and cheer)
Easter Bunny hops with joy,
Eggs for every girl and boy. (hop around )
Easter time at last is here,
Bunnies, chickies – let us cheer! (clap and cheer)
Author Unknown

”Eggs”periment: Place an egg into a jar of vinegar for a few days. Let the students predict what they think will happen to the egg. The shell should disintegrate leaving a slightly rubbery egg.

Egg Art: Provide each student with an egg shaped photocopied onto cardstock or white construction paper. Have the students decorate them using one or more of the following mediums:

~ cover the egg with one inch squares of tissue paper by laying each tissue paper square on the egg shape and painting over the square with watered-down glue. Overlapping the tissue paper will cause variations of color.

~ place the egg into a shallow box (such as a shirt sized gift box) along with different colors of paint in each corner of the box. Add a marble and have the student tilt the box causing the marble to roll through the paint and onto the egg.

~ puff paint

~ have them paint the egg with paint that has had corn syrup added to it. The corn syrup will give it a shiny finish.

~ tint evaporated milk with food coloring and use it to paint with

Egg Graph: Graph each student’s favorite way to eat eggs … fried, scrambled, boiled, deviled, poached, egg salad

Jellybean Graph: Give each student a small ziploc bag of jellybeans and a graph and have them graph the jellybeans in their bag.

Egg Surprise: Fill an Easter basket with plastic eggs. Place inside of each egg a slip of paper with a review question for skills that your class has covered through out the year. <name the vowels, how many days in a week, what month is it, etc.>
During times of the day when there’s a couple of extra minutes to be filled, choose an egg (or have the Student of the Week choose) and allow the students to take turns answering the questions.

You could turn it into a game by writing each student’s name on a craft stick. Place the sticks into a small soup or tomato paste can that’s been painted or covered. Choose one egg from the basket, and one stick from the can. Read the slip of paper in the egg, and call on the student who’s name is on the stick to answer the question. If the student answers the question correctly, you could remove the egg from the basket. If the student answers the question incorrectly, the answer is given either by you or another student. Then the egg, along with the slip of paper, is placed back into the basket. When all the eggs have been removed from the basket, then some kind of class reward could be given (maybe to watch The Easter Bunny video).

Gross Motor: Have students have bunny hopping races. Divide the class into two teams and have them hop down to a designated point and back. First team to finish wins the Golden Carrot Award! (a carrot complete with stem! what more could a bunny want!?! ? )

Easter Baskets: Use the bottom of 2 liter soft drink bottles by cutting off the bottom at the depth you’d want your baskets to be. Glue on bunny ears, wiggly eyes, a pink pom-pom nose, and make a mouth using a sharpie marker. Fill with Easter grass. Use thin wire or pipecleaners to make a handle. Pierce the basket with an icepick or with a hole punch. You could also cover the basket with white cottonballs before gluing on the eyes, etc.

Easter Chicks: This could be a treat that you might make for your class. This craft isn’t something you could really have your students make because you’re using hot glue. You’ll need a plastic Easter egg that opens up, two yellow pom-poms, one larger than the other; two small wiggly eyes, and orange felt. Open the Easter egg and hot glue the larger pom-pom into the bottom of the egg. Glue the smaller pom-pom on top of it forming the chick. Glue the wiggly eyes to the front of the chick’s face. Cut a diamond shaped beak from the orange felt and fold in half. Put a strip of glue on the fold and glue onto the chick. Your students will be so surprised when they open their eggs … they look like real little chicks (well, almost …). You can use the poem below with these!

Eggs
Eggs come in many sizes
Eggs hold some big surprises
Speckled, brown, white or blue
Eggs hold babies that are new
Chicks from eggs are fluffy yellow
Chicks from eggs are funny fellows.
Author Unknown

Easter Egg Bingo: Make Easter Egg bingo cards by drawing an Easter egg in each box of the bingo card. If you have access to them, Ellison has a die-cut that makes the right size ovals for eggs. Cut the eggs from pastel colors and glue them onto the cards. Program each egg with a letter. You can use all capital letters, all lowercase letters, or a mixture of both. The students can use any kind of Easter candy as markers: jellybeans, M&Ms, etc.

The Bunny Hop: Discuss with your students that bunnies hop to get from one place to another. Using masking tape, mark off several one foot sections on the floor. Let each student take a turn seeing how far they can hop. Have the rest of the students record each student’s hop on a graph. Afterwards discuss the results of the graph.

Easter Bunny: Write the words Easter Bunny on two sentence strips. Use one for a model, cut the other one up into letter cards. Provide the students with a sheet of paper to record their responses on. Have the students see how many words they can make using the letters in “Easter Bunny”. They write the words down on their response sheet.

You could make it into a competition between the students by seeing who could make the most words in a designated period of time OR you could make it a competition between families by sending it home for a Take-Home Project.

This Little Bunny
This little bunny has two pink eyes.
This little bunny is very nice.
This little bunny is soft as silk.
This little bunny is white as milk.
This little bunny nibbles away,
At cabbages and carrots
All through the day!

B-U-N-N-Y
(tune: Bingo)

I know a rabbit with long pink ears
And bunny is his name-O
B-U-N-N-Y
B-U-N-N-Y
B-U-N-N-Y
And bunny is his name-O!

He hops to your house on Easter morn…
repeat

He hides colored eggs around your yard …
repeat
Author Unknown

Easter Eggs
(tune: Jingle Bells)

Easter eggs, Easter eggs,
Eggs of orange and blue.
Here are lots of colored eggs
All for me and you.

Chocolate eggs colored brown
Jelly beans bright green.
Aren’t these the most beautiful eggs
That you have ever seen?
Author Unknown

Patience
Chocolate Easter bunny
In a jelly bean nest,
I’m saving you for very last
Because I love you best.
I’ll only take a nibble
From the tip of your ear
And one bite from the other side
So that you won’t look so queer.
Yum, you’re so delicious!
I didn’t mean to eat
Your chocolate tail till Tuesday.
Oops! There go your feet!
I wonder how you back tastes
With all that chocolate hair.
I never thought your tummy
Was only filled with air!
Chocolate Easter bunny
In a jelly bean nest.
I’m saving you for very last
Because I love you best.

One teacher said that as she read this poem to her class, she bit off the bunny parts as she read. Then she gave each student a bunny and allowed them to do the same thing as she reread the poem.

Easter Baskets: These sound too cute … I just don’t know how well they’d hold up as a functional basket of any kind.

Have students color both sides of a large paper plate with bright colored markers. Dip the plates in water and place over a coffee can and secure with a rubberband. Flute the edges. Once they’re dry, punch a hole in each side and make a pipecleaner handle.

You could try the same thing with construction paper and liquid starch.

Hippety Hop and Hippety Hay
Five little bunnies went out to play
Hippety Hop and Hippety Hay
One little bunny hopped away.

<keep repeating .. counting backwards until you get to one>

Hippety Hop and Hippety Hay
Zero bunnies went out to play
Hippety Hop and Hippety Hay
They’ll all come back another day
Author Unknown

Easter Bonnets:
1) You’ll need a white paperplate and a white paper bowl for each hat. Cut out the middle of the paperplate so that it will fits over the inverted bowl. Have the students paint and decorate them. They can even add silk flowers to them.

2) For this bonnet, you’ll need a white paperplate and a long piece of ribbon. Cut a slash on each side of the paperplate, then have the students decorate them. Thread the ribbon through the two slits with the ends trailing out from the bottom. Tie the ends into a huge bow under the chin. The boys can present their bonnets to any female of their choosing.

Jelly, jelly, jelly bean.
Belly, belly, belly bean.
Orange, white, black, green,
Red, blue yelly bean.
Many, many can be seen!
All the colors in between.
From one to many beans.
Guess how many jelly beans!
by Valerie Schiffer Danoff

You could use this poem with an Estimation Jar full of jellybeans or with the jellybean graphing activity.

Easter Bunny soft and white
Hopping softly in the night
Thank you for the candy you bring
At Easter time we welcome spring
Easter Bunny soft and white
Hopping softly in the night.
Author Unknown

(can sing with Twinkle, Twinkle tune)

Easter Bunny Chant
Funny little bunny
Sat on a stump
Flicked his floppy little ears
And then he gave a jump!
Author Unknown

Easter Bunny Hippity Hop
(tune: Pop Goes the Weasel)

Easter bunny, hippity hop
Hide ‘til Easter morning
Easter bunny, hippity hop
UP! Pops the bunny.

Easter Fingerplay
Five little Easter eggs, lovely colors wore
Mother ate the blue one, then there were four.
Four little Easter eggs, two and two you see,
Daddy ate the red one, then there were three.
Three little Easter eggs, before I knew
Sister ate the yellow one, then there were two.
Two little Easter eggs, Oh what fun.
Brother ate the purple one, then there was one.
One little Easter egg, see me run.
I ate the last one, and then there were none.
Author Unknown

You could provide each student with 5 eggs photocopied onto white paper and have each one labeled with red, blue, yellow, purple, and another color. Have them color and cut them out. Then they can use the manipulatives as you recite the fingerplay.

Easter Bunny
(tune: Ten Little Indians)

Hop along little Easter bunny
Hop along little Easter bunny
Hop along little Easter bunny
Hop along your way.

Hide all the eggs and Easter candy
Hide all the eggs and Easter candy
Hide all the eggs and Easter candy
Hop along your way.
Author Unknown

Easter Bonnet: This is an Easter Bonnet made by my TA. You begin with a paperplate and 5 feet of ribbon. Make a slit in the plate on each side for the ribbon to slide through and come out the bottom. Then glue on squares of tissue paper crumpled up to form flowers. She used the pre-cut squares made for making parade floats. Both of us are camera shy, and we couldn't use one of the kids for pictures, so we dolled up this ball! :)

Easter Bunny Book: Below is a picture of a book that we made. It was photocopied from File Folder Activities for Learning Centers (Teacher Created Materials 2209) It's a spin-off from Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

I also turned this into a pocketchart activity.

Books:
The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes ~ Dubose Heyward
Bunny Trouble ~ Hans Wilhelm
Peter Cottontail ~ Beatrix Potter
The Grumpy Easter Bunny ~ Justine Korman
Easter Bunny's Lost Egg ~ Troll
The Big Bunny and the Easter Eggs ~ Steven Kroll
Easter Parade ~ Eileen Curran

As you can tell from the picture, The Grumpy Easter Bunny has beautiful, bright pictures.

Five Little Bunnies

One little bunny,

Wondering what to do,

Another bunny came along,

Then there was two.

Two little bunnies,

Hopping like me,

Another bunny came along,

Then there were three.

Three little bunnies,

Jumping by my door,

Another bunny joined them,

Then there were four.

Four little bunnies,

So fluffy and alive,

Another bunny joined them,

Then there were five.

Five little bunnies,

Ready for some fun,

Hopped away in the

Warm, spring sun.

This poem goes along well as a fingerplay or to use with fingerpuppets or the flannelboard.

Centers: The pictures below are of some of the Centers that the Half Pints Classroom are doing in Goose Creek, SC. Tammy only shared the pictures, so the captions were written by me. So this is my interpretation of the Centers.

It took me a few minutes to figure this one out. :) Our view of the tin is upside down. These are upside-down bunnies! Each has been labeled with a letter and the students sort the letter beads into the correct compartment.

I rotated the picture and cropped it so that you could see the bunnies right-side up.

This is a file folder activity where they match the correct color rabbit to the correct color basket.

Easter manipulatives.

Neat idea to store all these small pieces in snap-lock pencil boxes.

Each cup in the muffin tin has been labeled with a number. The student counts the correct number of rabbits into each cup.

The student matches each pair of eggs according to color and design on the eggs.

Sorting the correct color pom-poms into the correct color bowl.

Another file folder activity matching the number to the correct number of dots.

This file folder activity reminded me that you can also pull in the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme during this unit. In this activity, Humpty Dumpty pieces on the file folder or programmed with a pattern. The student must match the egg with the same pattern to each Humpty Dumpty. Other Humpty Dumpty activities can be found here: Humpty Dumpty

Another file folder activity. The student matches the circle with a lowercase letter to the correct circle on the lamb containing the matching capital letter.

Tammy, thanks for taking the time to share all your Center photos! :)

Jellybeans

Jelly beans are fun to eat,

Share them with the friends you meet.

Eat a few, they sure are yummy,

But... not too many,

They'll hurt your tummy!

~ Author Unknown

Jelly Beans

Five little jelly beans,

I wish I had more!