April Fool’s Day!
Today is April Fool’s Day which although it is not a national holiday is celebrated all around the world. It is a day of good natured pranks and funny jokes. Last year we used this day to teach the children how to use jokes while talking or presenting their presentations. We then created some really fun joker hats with craft foam.
Here at fun and facts with kids we are planning a brilliant April with lots of fun activities and creative fun. We also have a little fun celebrating this day, April Fools. This year we have several holidays’ that fall so close together on the calendar. We have decided to combine both Earth Day and Arbor Day.
This year we are really using our creative juices and have come up with the idea! We want to only use items that we have already that are normally recycled. We started off by creating a giant tree. We cut open 6 recycled brown paper grocery bags and then taped them together. We then hand drawled a free flowing tree. We had a small roll of light blue wrapping paper that we used to cover part of the wall to represent our blue sky. Then with a little help we taped our tree to the blue paper.
In preparation for our decorating plans for these two fun days, there is a day called “Draw a picture of a Bird Day” that falls on April 8th. Last year we decoupaged rocks with pictures of birds that we loved. The kids also colored in owls on a piece of paper with glue and then sprinkled glitter on them. When they were done they made foam frames out of craft foam sheets and we had sparkly pictures to enjoy all year. We have asked the kids to see if they can come up with idea for making birds for the tree using recyclable materials. Lauren still loves to color and we have printed out some pictures of birds for her to color, cut and add to the tree.
Throughout the month of April we are going to be adding all kinds of fun things to the tree. This has really gotten the children’s creativity going. We plan to make birds, leaves and all kinds of fun things for the tree using recycled items.
Earth Day is a very educational day here at fun and facts with kids. After our lunch the kids present us with their own creative Earth Day presentations. Last year they did a wonderful job and we can’t wait to see what they come up with this year.
Matthew came up with a crafty idea last year and surprised both of us with Earth Day bracelets. He painted earths on 2” buttons and then strung them together to form a bracelet. We love them!! This year he has a new idea. He created Earth Salt Dough. Basically he made ordinary salt dough and decided to add cinnamon to make it brown and parsley flakes because he thought it would be “earthy”, so cute! He then rolled the salt dough and made beads by placing them on a skewer. Lauren liked this idea and started to do the same. In the theme of making beads we decided to teach the kids how to make paper beads. We will share this craft with you in another post.
We will be planting some trees this month in our community. We visited the website for our local Horticultural Society and found some local areas where they will be planting trees during the month and we will go and volunteer our time and efforts and help them plant the trees. We hope this will be a fun and educational time for the kids.
Easter is the next big holiday we will celebrate this month. We have decided to dye our eggs using the Silk Tie Method. We have never attempted this before but are looking forward to the unique colors and patterns they leave on the eggs.
Also during this month, there are a few others worth mentioning to you that we will celebrate as well.
National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day – April 2nd
Zucchini Bread Day – April 23rd
Pretzel Making Day – April 26th - The kids loved this last year and very excited to celebrate this day again!
So, follow along with us this month as we celebrate this educational and exciting month. With spring here and the weather getting warmer we are expecting a fun and enjoyable month.
