Listed below are the objectives I am focusing on for the themed weeks. I have updated our objectives from the original ones we focused on because Carter mastered those skills. I plan to continue to implement activities to practice and reinforce our previous objectives while putting more emphasis on our new objectives. Some of them won't necessarily be targeted with specific activities during our weeks, but I wanted to list them to help me remember to practice them continually. The highlighted objectives are ones Carter received exposure to during our theme this week:
- Take turns in a simple game.
- Understand the meaning of mine, his, hers.
- Group objects based on a category (sort by defining feature).
- String beads or other objects.
- Count to 3 and understand what the numbers mean.
- We started the week off with an Easter sensory bin. I put Easter grass in the bottom of the bin and then added different kinds of plastic Easter eggs, the small eggs from his spring sensory bin, a wind up bunny, a chick, and a plastic moveable Easter bunny. I also put in his regular measuring cups along with a few Easter egg dying cartons. Carter took the Easter egg dying cartons and sorted the small eggs into them based on color. Then he put his bunny and chick on top of two of the cartons, pretending they were their nests. It was so cute!
Making nests for his bunny and chick.
- I saw an idea at some point online to make puzzles by drawing pictures on popsicle sticks. I used some Easter cookie cutters I had to draw a carrot on one set of popsicle sticks, a bunny on another, and an Easter egg on the last. Carter was so excited about the puzzles! He was able to do the carrot all by himself, but the bunny and egg were a bit challenging. I saved them for next year and I think he'll do better with them then. It was so cute because Carter decided he wanted to make a dog puzzle and pulled out popsicle sticks, telling me what he was drawing on each stick. He would say, "Doggy tail, doggy ear, doggy face." It was adorable!
Trying to put the bunny together after completing the carrot. 
Drawing his doggy puzzle. - We dyed Easter eggs again this year. Last year Ty's mom had seen putting the eggs in a whisk for young children to dye eggs easier. We tried it then, but Carter was still pretty young and swung the whisk around making a mess. This year he did a great job and really enjoyed it! I thought he'd dye one or two eggs and be done, but he dyed all 12 of the eggs Ty hard boiled. He was so sweet even saying he was making special eggs for me and his sissy. At first he would dip the eggs into the dye and leave them for a while. Then he got excited and flash dipped them, going on to the next color really quickly.
Caught them both smiling at the same time! 
Elise watching Carter dye eggs.
- To help Carter work on his fine motor skills, I put the plastic Easter eggs in a muffin tin. I asked him to get out certain colors of eggs and put them in a pile together. Then we counted to see how many of each color we had.
- We really got the use out of our plastic Easter eggs. I had Carter sort them based on color and then counted how many we had of each color. He really enjoyed it because I put Elise on the table so she could watch him sort the eggs.
- Saturday night we did a special Easter bath time. I sang "Ten Little Easter Eggs" to Carter and then he played with plastic Easter eggs in the tub. I thought he'd really like filling the eggs with water and then pouring the water out into the tub. He did enjoy that but his favorite thing to do was collect all the eggs in his little container and dump them into the water.
- On Easter we had an Easter egg hunt in the house. I filled eggs with cereal, marshmallows, raisins, M&M's, and jelly beans. Carter did a great job finding them and got excited each time he opened an egg to reveal what was inside. Most of the eggs he'd dump the snacks out onto his plate, but when he found marshmallows he'd eat them before moving on. The eggs with M&M's only had one M&M inside except for one which I deemed the golden egg because I put an entire fun sized package of M&M's inside it. Carter said he'd hit the "mother load" when he found that one which we all thought was funny!
- Carter got some new colors of Play Doh in his Easter basket. We opened them up and played with them using our spring and Easter cookie cutters. He always enjoys using cookie cutters so much!
- Ty's aunt posted a picture of a craft where a child's handprint was used to make a bunny. I thought it was adorable and immediately knew I wanted to do it with Carter for Easter. Then I saw another idea where a child's footprint was used to create a carrot. I decided to do both for my holiday frame and just the bunny for Easter cards for family. I was so excited to use Elise's hand and footprints along with Carter's! I did Elise's first and made them into bunnies. Then I showed Carter what we were going to make and he was much more excited than usual to create a handprint/footprint craft. I forgot how much more difficult it is to do handprints with a newborn as they tend to curl their fingers and you have to pull them up. Carter was so easy, he even held his fingers together to make the bunny ears like I wanted. With Elise I was just happy that they somewhat looked like they were supposed to! When we did the footprints Carter just stepped down on the paper where I showed him to. He did a great job!
- I put snacks into Easter eggs for Carter to open and eat. I put raisins, Cheerio's, Fruity Cheerio's, and a couple miniature marshmallows into the eggs. Carter was so cute opening the eggs. He got really excited when he found the marshmallows. I reminded Carter he could pinch the middle section of the eggs to open them, but he still pulled the eggs as hard as he could to open them.
That face cracks me up! 
- Using our colored containers for dying Easter eggs we sorted jelly beans by color into the appropriate colored container. Once we had the jelly beans sorted we counted how many there were of each color. Carter was very sweet and shared his jelly beans with everyone. We picked Starburst jelly beans which are Ty's favorite so he was quite pleased that Carter shared.
Sorting a yellow jelly bean into the yellow container. 
- I used a bunny cookie cutter to make Carter's grilled cheese into the shape of a bunny. Carter liked it so much he wouldn't eat it. He was so cute. He kept talking about his bunny and the bunny's ears.
- Carter put on bunny ears and pretended to be a bunny, hopping around the house. It was absolutely adorable!
- Using the bunny ears again we wore them and pretended we were the Easter bunny. We took a basket of eggs and hid them. The first time Carter and I hid the eggs together and had Ty come in to search for them. Then we took turns being the Easter bunny. I would hide the eggs and Carter would search for them. Then we would switch, he would hide them and I would search for them.
Carter heading out to hide his Easter eggs. 
Hiding eggs in sissy's room. 
Hiding an egg in sissy's crib.
- Carter and I put blankets over ourselves after reading a book about hatching. We then threw the blankets off and pretended we had hatched from eggs. We then pushed the towel up onto our shoulders and pretended we were birds, flapping our wings.
- During bath one night I pulled out Carter's duck toys and put them on the edge of the bath tub. I sang "5 Little Ducks" and as each duck didn't come back I pushed one of the ducks into the tub. Here's a youtube video of the song we sang:
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| Carter with his ducks. We only had 4 ducks, so we had to use the alligator in a tube. |
- We also sang Ten Little Eggs. We again did it in the bathtub during a special Easter bath time. As I sang the song, I threw a plastic Easter egg into the water which Carter thought was hilarious. The song went like this:
One little, 2 little, 3 little Easter eggs.
Four little, 5 little, 6 little Easter eggs.
Seven little, 8 little, 9 little Easter eggs.
10 little eggs in the tub.
Field Trip/Interactive Experience:- Breakfast with the Bunny at the zoo was an absolute blast! Carter enjoyed eating scrambled eggs, fruit, and french toast sticks (which he called french fries). When the Easter Bunny came out it was all he could talk about. He really wanted to go see the bunny and I was surprised. Pictures with Santa didn't go over very well so I didn't think he would be too interested in getting his picture with the bunny. While we waited in line to see the bunny a zoo keeper came around with a real bunny for the kids to pet which Carter loved, but once it was his turn to get a picture with the Easter Bunny he was no longer interested.
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| Carter petting the bunny. |
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| The best picture we got of Carter with the Easter Bunny. I'm interested to see how the photographer's picture turned out. |
Books:
- Hatch by Katie Cox
- That's Not My Bunny by Melanie Watt
- The Bunny Rabbit Show by Sandra Boynton
- Bunny My Honey by Anita Jeram
- Hatch, Little Egg by Edouard Manceau
- The Easter Ribbit by Bernice Chardiet
- Bunny Trouble by Hans Wilhelm
- Easter Eggs Everywhere by Steve Metzger
- Easter Egg Hunt by Abby Klein
- Olivia and the Easter Egg Hunt by Cordelia Evans
- The Night Before Easter by Natasha Wing
- Happy Easter, Little Critter by Mercer Mayer
- Easter Bunny's On His Way! by Brian James
- How Spider Saved Easter by Robert Kraus
- The Best Easter Prize by Kristina Evans
- The Littlest Rabbit by Robert Kraus
- Last One Is a Rotten Egg by Diane de Groat
- The Easter Bunny Is Missing by Steve Metzger
- The Cow That Laid an Egg by Andy Cutbill
- Pig's Egg by Katherine Sully
- The Berenstain Bears' Baby Easter Bunny by Jan & Mike Berenstain
- Peter Cottontail's Easter Egg Hunt by Joseph R. Ritchie
- I Hatched! by Jill Esbaum
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