We registered 30 3-6 year olds, as that is what our room can realistically hold. Registration for this program filled up very quickly (maybe 3 hours). If we had more staff and a larger room, we could have easily done this program all day long.
As the kids enter the room, they picked up their bunny ears. The bunny ears had the kids' names on them, which was fun for them, but an attendance tool for us.
Yep, I even rocked the bunny ears!
The kids sat on our story time carpet and listened to two stories. We tried to pick ones about bunnies that don't talk about Easter, because not everyone celebrates the holiday. We read Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes, followed by Ten Hungry Rabbits by Anita Lobel. I had plans to flannelize Ten Hungry Rabbits before the program, but ran out of time (goal for next year). Last year's group couldn't quite handle the Bunny Pokey (we got a lot of blank stares) so this year we replaced a lot of the dancing with some rhymes.
This little bunny has two pink eyes.
This little bunny is very wise.
This little bunny is soft as silk.
This little bunny is white as milk.
This little bunny nibbles away
At cabbages and carrots the livelong day!
(Does anyone know where the pattern is from? I would love to add a
citation w/o looking through all of our pro ref books.)
Then we passed out laminated bunny die cuts and did the following rhyme:
There's a Little Bunny
(to the tune of Happy and You Know It)
There's a little bunny sitting on my toe,
There's a little bunny sitting on my toe,
He is sitting on my toe, then off away he goes,
There is no little bunny on my toe.
There's a little bunny sitting on my knee,
There's a little bunny sitting on my knee,
He is sitting on my knee, just watch and he will flee,
There is no little bunny on my knee.
There's a little bunny sitting on my head,
There's a little bunny sitting on my head,
He is sitting on my head, then away he goes to bed,
There is no little bunny on my head.
We followed the story portion with craft time. Since we had three crafts this year, we put all of the supplies at one space so the kids didn't have to travel to different stations. All of these craft ideas were inspired by Pinterest.
Craft 1: Egg Bunnies
The original idea for this craft came from here. We tweaked it a little to make it work for younger kids and created or found the following patterns-egg shape, egg pants, and egg parts. We precut all of the pieces so all the kids had to do was glue them together and add the bunny's details with a crayon.
Craft 2: Paper Bag Bunnies
You will need a white paper bag and blue, white, and pink construction paper. I started with basic directions and came up with a pattern so our volunteer could cut out the pieces. We put all of the pieces back in the white paper bag to make them easy to pass out to the kids. When you are done gluing your parts on the bag, add whiskers with a crayon. Note-if you are doing a craft that uses white paper bags, start early looking for them. You will not find them in stores the month before Easter!
Craft 3: Bunny Faces
This idea originally came from here. I like it because it encourages play, which is an early literacy skill. To make your own, you will need a craft stick, a pink pom pom, a glue dot, and three white pipe cleaners. Note-our pipe cleaners started off too long so we chopped about 2 inches off of each one. You can also trim your "whiskers at the end if you are just making one. Put the glue dot at one end of the craft stick and place the pom pom on top. Wrap the middle of the three pipe cleaners around the stick (at least 1 full time around).
How it went:
With two years down, this program is definitely a "keeper", as long as we can fit it in between our story time sessions. The kids were happy, the adults were happy, and we were happy. Plus, nothing is cuter than a bunch of preschoolers wearing bunny ears!
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