Play Dough Easter Eggs in a Basket

The girls didn’t venture outdoors on Monday. It was just too hot. I suggested to the girls that we could make Easter eggs using the play dough in the fridge. This is an easy activity for Bree and she loves playing with play dough. The fact that Stella’s dough is always kept refrigerated in the warmer months also made the activity more fun. It is easy for anyone to learn to roll a piece of dough into a sphere shape but it is a little trickier to create egg shapes. Most of the girls’ eggs were spherical and a few were actually pretty well formed ovoids. The eggs didn’t have to be perfect. I was most happy to see the girls enjoying themselves.

While Bree was still happy playing with the play dough, Stella and I looked in her art cupboard for some construction paper to make simple baskets for the eggs. Bree didn’t participate in making the baskets but she did pick the colours for her basket when I asked her to. Bree picked yellow and orange, and Stella picked red and yellow. We needed two pieces of construction paper for each basket because they are not as strong as cardboard/cardstock. Stella was in charge of her own basket, following my suggestions as I made Bree’s. We used double sided sticky tape to adhere the two pieces of paper together to become one and then drew lines like I did. This was done step by step and Stella enjoyed every bit of it. Then I showed the Supergirl how to fold along the lines on all sides. Bree stopped playing with the dough and came over to have a look at what we were up to. After that we got the scissors out to cut the areas near the corners that needed to be cut. Bree sat there mumbling, “Sharp. It’s sharp.” LOL. Once the cutting was done, we had to put away the scissors again. We never used to have to do this in the past but now that Bree is here in the afternoons, we have to be careful. In doing this, Stella is learning to be neat, considerate and thoughtful. The final step to completing the basket’s body was to bring the corners together to be stapled together. As a precaution, I used normal sticky tape to cover the staples inside the baskets.

Thinking that the baskets were complete, the overexcited Stella rushed off to gather the play dough eggs she made earlier. Bree copied her. I asked Stella, “Hey Stella, come and have a look at the baskets. Do you think something is missing?” She came back to have a look and answered, “Oh, I forgot to write my name.” Before I got a chance to say anything else, Stella added, “I will use the new pink pen mummy bought me. I will write Bree’s name, okay? I know how to spell it. She has two ‘e’s in her name. It is like the word ‘green’.” When she came back with the pen, I asked her if there is anything else we can add to the basket to make it easier to hold. I suggested that she think about baskets holding chocolate Easter eggs and proceeded to the art cupboard. She came over and asked, “Do you mean we should add a loop, @#%*-@#%*? We will need ribbons for that.” In reply, I said, “I think the baskets could do with some handles. Shall we try making them with the same construction paper to see if it will work?” (Duh, I already knew it would work!) I didn’t have to invite Bree to pick a colour this time; she was already right next to the cupboard. She found a piece of green cellophane inside Stella’s useful box and was looking around the room through it.

The handles for the basket was easy to make. We just folded the paper lengthwise four times and then stapled each end to opposite sides of the basket. Again, I sticky taped the sharp ends of the staples as a precaution. Before stapling the handles, I demonstrated to Stella how each would look and only then did I invite her to use her new pen to write their names on the handles. While we were folding the paper, Bree wanted to join in. I got her a piece of paper for a bit of folding as well. She didn’t quite get what we were doing and was happy to simply fold the paper without following any directions. I try my best to involve Bree as much as possible. The things that I do with Stella are often not developmentally appropriate for Bree but I do try to allow her to do something similar on the side without following the same directions as Stella. To me, it is important that she is having fun and has the opportunities to observe what others are doing and to work with her hands.

Note: I did try to include a template for the paper basket in this blog but it is not working. How annoying!