Free printable Easter Bunny activities and Peter Rabbit crafts

Hello my friends of the Omschool! Easter is probably the most quintessentially preschool-first grade holiday of all. And teacher Omi has 10 grandchildren in that age category. So I'm sharing free printable Easter bunny lesson plans and crafts galore. From Easter baskets, candy, egg decorating, bunnies, baby animals, spring--little children love this festive season. For the young and young at heart, here are free printable Easter bunny crafts. I've included printable activities based on my two favorite bunnies, Peter Rabbit and the Velveteen Rabbit, too. Parents and homeschoolers, use for preschool lessons; teachers, you'll want these for preschool classroom fun. 

Easter bunny masks and costumes

Preschoolers love to dress up (so do many parents and teachers). Everything is more fun when you're in costume. That first link takes you to a plethora of printable animal masks. Actually, Woo Jr. (see link above) has an array of printable masks for masquerade, Greek theater, tribal cultures, Halloween and more. For more free printable Easter bunny masks visit First Palette. Print on plain paper. Have kids color their masks then glue on recycled cereal box cardboard then cut it out. This makes masks more durable. You'll find all kinds of fun Easter crafts here too. 

Vintage Easter crafts 

Now that you are properly Easter Bunny attired, let's make some Easter baskets and greeting cards. The Toymaker has free printable egg baskets, bunny cards and an egg roll game (like they play at the White House). Make cards and baskets, then fill with Easter eggs or candy and deliver to a lonely senior neighbor (wearing your mask, of course). The Easter bunny loves to visit his older friends, too!

Printable 3D Paper Bunny Crafts

The calendar may say spring, but Easter is often cold and damp. Settle kids down to an afternoon of serious rainy day crafting with free printable 3D bunny-themed paper toys from First Palette and Woo Jr. I'm partial to the old-fashioned Easter Bunny diorama. Get baskets full of free printable Easter Bunny crafts here. DL-TK has a blowout of Easter bunny coloring pages, bunny masks, paper bunny ears, stand-up toys, pop up rabbit crafts and much more. I love how easy these are to make. Simple instructions, step-by-step how-to--perfect for preschool and special needs children who need no-fail activities. 

Free Peter Rabbit printables. 

Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter's rascally rabbit has his own page, along with other Beatrix Potter friends. There are printables based on the Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams, on Making Friends. It's part of a complete free printable unit on rabbits. Print Peter Rabbit coloring pages, lesson plans and activities the Peter Rabbit website. Look for more bunny coloring pages, games, puzzles, dot-to-dot and color by number, felt board games and felt board patterns. First School offers a free printable Peter Rabbit activities unit with learning games, literature activities, writing prompts and stories. Teach alphabet, simple math, counting and reading with these worksheets. 

Enjoy reading books on rabbits for Easter as well! 

The Velveteen Rabbit

Beatrix Potter Treasury on Peter Rabbit

Knuffle Bunny (Mo Willems)

Peter Cottontail (Thornton Burgess)

Bunnicula (for older kids) (James and Debra Howe)

Richard Scarry features rabbits in many of his books! Teacher Omi had and loved The Bunny Book (shaped like a rabbit) when she was young, a long time ago! I found copies of this beloved story book on Thriftbooks. 

Happity, Hippity, Hoppity Easter

Lesson plans using recycled plastic Easter eggs and egg cartons

  I love repurposing and reusing stuff from my recycle bin in new and creative ways, especially as lesson plans. Recently, my one-year-old grandson has been discovering the fun playing with empty recycled plastic Easter eggs. This has inspired me to design hands-on activities, lesson plans and games using recycled plastic Easter eggs and egg cartons. I've includes some free printable activities to supplement. 

With Easter coming up, there will be many activities involving plastic Easter eggs: candy hunts, Easter crafts, etc. You might be tempted to throw them away, after use, but don't. There are so many educational activities to use recycled plastic Easter eggs. Save Styrofoam egg cartons as well. 

I blogged in an earlier post about using plastic eggs and egg cartons from the recycle bin as preschool learning center math, sorting and fine motor activities. The good news for homeschoolers is that these make great toddler high chair activities too. Activities are easily adjustable to age. My grandkids Juno and Emmett who are 1, love stacking or "nesting" plastic egg halves, just like blocks. We work on placing eggs in egg cartons, to practice eye hand coordination, puzzle skills and fine motor. 

Challenge kids fine motor skills in egg assembly activities. The plain colored recycled plastic eggs are easier than the shaped ones like the ice cream ones shown in the picture which can be a little tricky. But it's important for development that some tasks be difficult, especially for special needs and students with autism. We teach to fear failure and frustration when we make things too easy, or do it for them. Children need challenges, to have to work at something and to try new approaches, to learn patience, perseverance and vital problem solving skills. 

Use assembled Easter eggs in science learning centers and preschool sand and water table to explore water displacement and floatation concepts. Give toddlers scooping tools to practice fine and gross motor skills in high chair activities. Special needs students will love "fishing" for Easter eggs too! 

Have kids "hide" little items or non-messy foods in recycled plastic Easter eggs. Or hide them yourself and have students predict what's inside. This teaches math skills of size estimation. 

Sort eggs in egg cartons, by color or design. Last year, when my husband and I visited our grandkids, we brought each child a set of individualized themed Easter eggs (dinosaurs, fish, desserts, sports balls and insects). Then we played an Easter egg hunt game in which each child had to find eggs in his pattern. The 3-year-olds, Lucian and Milo, were able to identify eggs that belonged in their pattern. And Ezra, who was almost two, was able to find his fishy Easter eggs by their color. Extend pattern lesson plans with free printable animal dominoes. 

Do an Easter egg hunt, using recycled egg cartons to place found eggs. Each child brings a dozen and finds a dozen. Once her 12 spaces are filled she "wins." A homeschool mom friend of my oldest daughter came up with genius plan. It prevents kids taking too many eggs and best of all teaches math skills. Have older kids group their eggs by two, three, four and six, to learn skip counting, multiplying and dividing. Reinforce with these free printable math flash cards. 

For more hands-on lesson plans and recycle bin activities stay tuned to this blog. 

Recycle bin Easter egg crafts to teach early math--with free printables

With Earth Day (now actually Earth Month) around the corner, I'm sharing lesson plans to make crafts from your recycle bin. Today we're making recycle bin Easter egg crafts to teach early math activities of sorting and matching, plus fine motor skills. These Easter egg crafts were inspired by my toddler grandchildren, Juno, Ezra and Emmett. 

As a homeschool mom, I was always looking for toddler high chair activities to keep the youngest busy learning while I did lesson plans with the older kids. Use these Easter egg crafts in math learning centers, as high chair activities or at a toddler picnic table for older more mobile preschoolers. I used one of the small Little Tikes picnic tables with our youngest. I rotated different preschool crafts and hands-on activities for her to work on. You could use the sand and water table also. 

For toddler Easter egg crafts (ages 1-2)  you're only going to need two things, which can be found in your recycle bin: plastic refillable Easter eggs and empty egg cartons. Assemble eggs for 1-year-old children and let them practice sorting into egg cartons. As they get older, children can begin assembling Easter eggs. Then at age 2-ish, they can match egg halves by color or pattern (we have some really cool ones shaped like sports balls, fish and ice cream!) These are great for developing fine motor skills. And saving Easter eggs from year to year is environmentally friendly so prefect for Earth Month. 

Also at age two, or whenever they no longer put things in their mouths, they can begin filling Easter eggs with tiny objects or shapes. Children might cut shapes from recycled cardboard or paper, to practice scissors skills. They might also use shape punches. Extend this into a fun preschool snack craft by giving them little snacks to hide in eggs (fish crackers, letter pretzels, etc.)

Here are free printable Earth Day activities and here's my page of free printable Earth Day lesson plans, crafts and activities. Lastly, here's my collection of lesson plans for Earth Day trash crafts Stay tuned for more Earth Month activities!