The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
- After reading the story, fix a salad that both people and rabbits will like.
- Make paper rabbit ears to wear as you re-enact the story. Don't forget all the other animals' roles.
- Draw a map of Mr. McGregor's garden. Show Peter's route on the map.
- Make a life-size scarecrow for Mr. McGregor's garden. Have a friend trace around your body (cut two). Decorate the tracing, glue the edges, and stuff with newspapers.
- Do the Bunny Hop for an exercise break.
Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss
- Use a Venn diagram to contrast the personalitites of Horton and Mayzie.
- Find out about the functions of different parts of real eggs.
- Decorate large construction paper eggs. Design unusual animals like Horton's elephant-bird to hatch from the egg.
- Make Horton from two paper plates. Paint both plates gray. Cut one plate in half for the ears. Add a construction paper trunk and eyes.
A Nest Full of Eggs by Priscilla Belz Jenkins
- After reading the story, make edible bird nests as an extension.
- To make the edible bird nests, mix together:1 7-oz. jar of marshmallow creme, 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter, and 4 tablespoons softened butter. Then add 1 8-oz. can chow mein noodles.Mix well. Let each child put a spoonful of the mixture into a muffin liner and mold the dough into a nest. (This works best if the children grease their fingers). The final touch is some jelly bean eggs. What a wonderful creation and the best part is, it's edible!!!
The Easter Egg Farm by Mary Jane Auch
After reading the story, try any or all of the following ideas:
- Make an egg shape on heavy-duty paper. Mix condensed milk with different fool colors (separate bowl for each color).
Let the children paint the eggs with many different colors from the mixtures. Let the eggs dry and you will have shiny eggs!
- Use crayon-resist to decorate egg shapes. Give each child a construction paper egg (white or another light color works best). Let the child color the egg making sure that they color heavy. Brush over with watercolors or thinned tempera paint and watch the design appear!
- Add food coloring to light corn syrup. Let children fingerpaint construction paper eggs with the mixtures. Let it dry and the eggs is ready for display!
