Spring and Easter Fun and Activities ft. iChild

Easter is almost here, and with it comes a whole lot of fun, including chocolate, Easter egg hunts and of course, the two week break from school. Finding ways to entertain our mini humans is always an I interesting task, especially if you want to mix it up a bit so they don't do the same stuff all the time.

With my girls still being young enough to not be in school yet, the idea of entertainment during end of term holidays doesn't really affect us. Instead I have to find fun things to entertain them all the time! I love to take them outside, especially when the weather is so nice, but sometimes this just can't happend. That's where iChild comes in. After discovering the website a few weeks ago, it has become my go to for fun, free activities and ideas.

The fact that iChild offer a wide range of activities and use seasonal highlights to make sure that there is always something new and different available, are two reasons as to why I have fallen in love with them. This week we have been using their Easter collection (which you can find here) and their Spring collection (which you can find here) and having loads of fun together.

My personal favourite was the Daffodil Craft. It comes complete with templates and instructions on how to create your very own daffodils, using straws, yoghurt pots and paper. For ours, we simply used items we already had in the house, rather than going out to spend money on them. This meant using a mixture of paper and foam to make the flowers, and only being able to make four (as this was the number of green straws we had!)

As we didn't have yoghurt pots, I drew around a Pringles lid to create a circle on yellow paper, then cut a straight line from the edge to the centre, and a small hole in the centre. When one side of the line is pulled and glue behind the other side, it crates quite a nice bell for the front of the Daffodil.

My one piece of advice is have the templates all cut out before you begin. I made the mistake of showing mt daughter what we were about to do, and low and behold she kept grabbing all the parts and running off with them! In the end though, Squidgy and I had so much fun sticking all the parts together and pushing them onto the straw stalk, and I think they turned out fabulously! They're going to make some great alternative Easter gifts this year.

We also tried out a couple of the iChild colouring in activities. Squidgy loved making the Easter basket door hanger, and even wanted to make one for her cousin. For now she is not so great at staying within the lines, but that's doesn't matter as, just like my hubby said to me, she is "expressing herself". Besides, if she's having fun, and it's keeping her occupied, that's the whole point right?

The other colouring in activity we used off the iChild website was the Easter bookmark. These she has decided are for her Grandma and Nanny, and I'm sure they will love opening their Easter cards to find these little handmade gifts inside. There are two great things about these types of activities:

They are relatively mess free (OK so her lovely OBaby table has a bit of crayon decoration now, but I'm sure it will clean off. Probably. Maybe.)
They can be done relatively unsupervised (obviously not if you want them to be perfect, or don't want them ripped, screwed up or otherwise defaced)

Once Squidgy had coloured all the bits in, I cracked out a marker to write the name of them hehe recipient onto the front, and our laminator. Now they are all nicely laminated and her <strike>scribbles</strike> beautiful colouring is preserved forever.

Finally, we found iChild's Easter Snap! Cards which beyond a shadow of a doubt are Squidgy's favourite. If you're brave enough (which I'm not) you could let your children colour the cards in, or alternatively (like me) just keep them black and white.

There is a load of different cards including traditional Easter story ones like an empty tomb, and fun ones like the Easter bunny. They take forever to cut out, unless you have a guillotine (which I did, but it broke). Plus, if like me you know they're going to get destroyed during play, and decide to laminate and protect them, you have to cut them out twice. It's worth it though, they look great and it is so much fun to play with.

One of my favourite things about this game is that as well as bein fun it can be educational. The cards are a fantastic way to get your children talking about the Easter story, learning to read words and so much more. The possibilities are endless and only limited by your imagination of how to use them.

A word of warning though. Playing Snap! brings out the competitive side of all family membets, even fully grown men like my husband who doesn't want to be beaten by his three year old daughter!

Being one who likes to be prepared, I made sure to print a couple of the colouring in pictures too, including the Easter Bunny, Easter Chicks and Happy Easter Poster which we will pack in our bag with some crayons and take to church to keep her quiet and occupied there.

Make sure you check out all the different Easter and Spring activities available on the iChild website, there are so many choices... and a lot of them are free! You never know what you might find to keep your children busy during the Easter holidays.