Easter Crafts for the First Graders

I love tying together crafts and learning. I was subbing in a first grade classroom for almost 2 weeks and decided I would throw in some crafts as classroom rewards for good behavior.

The first craft was a bunny topper for a writing piece. I read the story "It's Not Easy Being a Bunny" aloud, charted some commentary from our whole class discussion, and had the kids partner talk. They chose from two prompts: 'It's not easy being a bunny,...' and 'If I were a bunny...'. The kiddos then wrote a rough draft and conferred with a partner. When they were ready they received the materials for the craft.

I originally created these bunny toppers after being inspired by the Leaping Leprechaun toppers made by A Cupcake For the Teacher. Then after painstakingly hand drawing my bunny patterns, I saw that she uploaded her own bunny craftivity. It is called Bunny Hop and you can buy it in her TpT store if you like the idea.  She is one creative teacher, I love following her blog.

The other craft we did was a stained glass Easter egg using contact paper, construction paper, tissue paper and glue. They turned out so awesome! To sprinkle in some learning, we reviewed patterns, charted the different kinds, then demonstrated how each row of our Easter Eggs could be a different pattern using the tissue squares. Some kids latched onto this idea more than others. I loved them all anyway!

You can find the instructions for this stained glass Easter egg project here.

Happy Easter, friends!

DIY Simple & Cute Diaper Cake

I am at that time in my life where everyone around me is either getting married or having babies.  I love giving practical gifts.  One of my favorite gifts to give for baby showers is a diaper cake.  They are so versatile, depending on your budget you can make a really simple diaper cake, or you can make an elaborate one with a ton of stuff on it.  I personally like the more simplistic and clean look similar to the picture above.  The mother to be will have diapers (a hot commodity) and possibly a cute stuffed animal with gift card to Babies R Us or Target.


General Guidelines for DIY Diaper Cake:


Materials: 96 diapers, 4 yards of scrap string/ribbon, decorative ribbon, round tray or plate, adhesive tape, hot glue and decorative elements, toys or gifts to attach

1. Follow tutorial How to Make A Professional Diaper Cake to get your base cake ready
2. Measure ribbon for each layer and add 2 inches for overlap.
3. Lay out decorative elements like stickers, beads, buttons, extra bows that you will add to each layer.
4. Using roll-on adhesive tape attach ribbon to itself snugly onto each layer.
5. Hot glue any decorative elements to the ribbon.

Here is the diaper cake almost completed.  The family was having a baby boy with the last name Lamb, no first name chosen yet.  They also have a passion for basketball so the theme of the baby shower was going to be basketball. The only thing left to add is a topper and gift card.  For this cake, the plan was to add a little baby pair of Air Jordans and a gift card to Babies R Us.

There are two ways that I know of to make diaper cakes.  This was my first time attempting the swirly looking cake.  The other way would be to roll each diaper like the one I made in picture below.  As you can see, it's a little wonky looking, but still cute with only a few decorative elements. If you are interested, here is a great tutorial on how to make it in this style. Both ways are fairly easy, just a bit time consuming.  I think I like the swirly way better and especially now that I know how easy it is to make.

Diaper cake made by rolling each individual diaper.

Diaper cakes are a great gift to attempt if you have a creative side.  You can make them as simple or gaudy as you like.  Try not to agonize over the millions of options and just have fun!