April Activites Calendar

Sometimes it's nice to have a plan ahead of the activities you want to do with your children. I have organized a calendar of events so you can plan ahead activities and keep your child engaged in fun games and learning activities over Spring Break as well as the rest of the month of April. Not only are the activities fun but they are low cost! I have not created all of these activities and I will give credit where credit is due since there are many creative minds in the blog world. Enjoy! 

April Activities Calendar

1. Donut Seeds - This is a fun April Fools surprise for your little one. Use Cheerios and give them to your child as 'Donut Seeds'. Let your child plant the 'donut seed' into a small cup of dirt inside the house and water it. When your child is outside playing or doing another activity remove the cheerio and place a donut on top of the cup. They will love the surprise =)




Supplies:
Cheerios

Ziplock Bag labeled with Donut Seeds
<--- (Right click and print to use image)
Plastic Cup
Dirt
Donut








2. Motor Skills Dice Game - Either role a normal dice and do the activity that it correlates with. Label a piece of paper 1-6 with each number being a different skill (ex: jump as high as you can, pat your head and rub your belly, spin in a circle 10 times, do a cartwheel, hula hoop for 15 seconds, do jumping jacks). Or you can take an unused box and draw an activity on each side and have your child do whatever the dice rolls on.
Supplies:
Dice
Paper & Pen
or if you want to be more creative and make a dice-box:
Small-Medium sized white box
Sharpie

3. Butterfly Catcher - Use black construction paper and cut out an extra large image of a butterfly, use an exactoknife and cut out patterns and shapes on the butterfly's wings. Allow your child to cut out different colored pieces of tissue paper and glue on to the back of the wings to make a colorful pattern.
Supplies:
Black Construction Paper
Exactoknife
Tissue Paper (in different colors)
Glue

4. Bird Feeder - Tie a string around the wide bottom part of a pine cone, lather it in peanut butter, then roll around in bird seed. Hang the bird feeder from a tree and let the birds come.
Supplies:
Bird Feed
Pine cone
Peanut Butter
String

5. Pebble Plaque - Gather rocks/pebbles to put in a homemade plaque.
Knead dough until it's smooth. Divide the dough into three balls. Place each ball on a piece of foil and flatten it into a disk. Press pebbles into the dough to create a design.
Heat the oven to 275 degrees. Transfer the foil and dough onto a baking sheet. Bake the plaques for two hours, then let them cool completely. Check to see if any pebbles are loose; if so, remove them, add a drop of tacky glue, and replace them.
Supplies:
Dough (Mix 3 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 1 1/4 cups water (plus up to an additional 1/4 cup, as needed) with an electric mixer on medium speed to beat the ingredients together until a ball forms. If the mixture is still crumbly, add more water.)
Pebbles
Foil
Baking Sheet

6. Alphabet Hunt - Lay out the letters of the alphabet if you have magnetic letters or write the letters out in chalk on the sidewalk and have your child find a household or outdoor item that starts with the letter and place it under the letter.
Supplies:
Magnetic Alphabet Letters or Piece of Chalk

7. Egg Carton Caterpillar - Cut the rows of a cardboard egg carton and let your child paint the caterpillar's sections. When dry, hot glue googly-eggs and cut a pipe-cleaner in half for antenna's to put on to the front piece of the caterpillar.
Supplies:
Cardboard Egg Carton
Scissors
Hot Glue Gun
Paint
Googly-eyes
Pipe cleaners

8. Fairy Terrarium - In a large mouth mason jar layer rocks, dirt, then moss and then add some home made toadstools using clay (painting them red and white if desired) and/or add small sized toys (Disney's fairy toys have very small counterparts you can use) to compliment the 'fairy habitat'.
Supplies:
Large Mason Jar
Rocks/Pebbles
Dirt
Moss
Small Toys/Clay-shaped toadstools

9. Dice Game - A good addition game! Draw an image and scatter #'s 2-12 throughout different parts of the picture (or simply list #'s 2-12) and then have your child roll two 6 sided die. Each time your child rolls they add up the number on the dice and color in the part of the picture where the sum is. They do this until the entire picture is colored. It can also be a game for more than one person, the first one to color in their drawing wins!
Supplies:
Pen
Paper
(to draw your own or you can get an image that I have labeled with numbers already here)
Crayons
2 Dice

10. Clothespin Butterflies - Have your child color various clothespins, glue small googly eyes on the end, and then fold two cupcake lines and glue them to the inside of the clothespin. If you want to display these pretty butterflies then superglue a small but strong magnet to the back of the clothespin so you can place it on the fridge.
Supplies:
Clothespins
Cupcake liners
Small Googly-eyes
Markers
Glue
(Magnet-optional)

11. Sun Plate - Have your child color a paper plate yellow and draw a smiling face on it. Using yellow and Orange construction paper, trace your child's hand and cut out the hand, do this multiple times. After you have enough hands cut out, let your child glue the hands to the back of the paper plate creating a sun.
Supplies:
Paper Plate
Yellow Marker/Crayon
Black Marker/Crayon
Scissors
Glue
Pencil
Yellow Construction Paper
Orange Construction Paper

12. Painting Sidewalk - Couldn't be more simple to explain...let your child have an activity day of painting anything that they want on the sidewalk. Let them be creative and paint all types of scenes. Just place the paint in a muffin baking pan and give your child a paint brush and plenty of different colors. Here is a recipe for making Sidewalk Paint: 2 tbsp. Corn Starch, 4 tbsp. Water, 6-8 drops food coloring.
Supplies:
Sidewalk Paint
Paint brush
Muffin baking pan

13. Water Balloon Target - With Chalk draw a bull's-eye on the ground and write how many points each section is worth. Have your child stand a bit away from the bull's-eye and throw a water balloon at it. If you want to make it a game for more than one person, whoever has the most points after throwing five water balloons wins!
Supplies:
Balloons
Chalk
Hose

And after the water has washed away the bull's-eye why not have a water balloon fight!

14. Bouncing Bubbles - 6 cups water, 2 cups regular Joy Dish soap, 1 cup corn syrup - Make bubbles that last a little longer than regular bubbles. If you do not have a bubble wand you can make one by twisting a pipe cleaner into a loop then twist another pipe cleaner around the loop and secure it. The second pipe cleaner will serve as a handle. Simply dip the loop in the bubble solution while holding the handle.

Supplies:
Bubble Mix
Bubble Wand

15. Side Walk Chalk Day - Have an activity day packed with things to do with sidewalk chalk Ex: Tic Tac toe, Hopscotch, Draw roads for your child to ride their bike on and different places/buildings for her/him to visit while on their bike, Play a game of hangman, Draw roads for your children's toy cars, Let them draw anything they want!
Supplies:
Lots and lots of sidewalk chalk!

16. Marble Racing - Cut a water noodle in half and roll marbles down each noodle and let them race to a box at the bottom of the noodles. Sit the noodles high at one end (like on the back of a chair) and then rest the bottom on a shoe box to collect the marbles that have already rolled down. 
Supplies:
Marbles
Scissors/Knife
Shoe box
Pool Noodle

17. Angry Birds Bowling - Use empty tin cans, remove the label and paint them to look like the angry pigs. Take a plain red rubber ball and paint an angry bird on it. Stack the pigs and roll the angry bird to bowl them down.
Supplies:
Empty tin cans
Green, White, and Black Paint (for an Angry Pig painted can)
Small to Medium Sized Rubber Ball
Yellow, White and Black Paint (for an Angry Bird painted ball)

18. Kick Croquet - Cut a couple of hula hoops in half and stick in the ground outside, use a medium size rubber ball and have your child kick the ball through each of the hula hoops.
Supplies:
Medium sized rubber ball
Scissors
Hula Hoops

19. Water Grass Bed - This is pretty cool and inexpensive. All you need is a hose, duck tape and plastic drop cloth to make an outdoor water play mat for the kids. Looks like fun!
Supplies:
Scissors
Duck Tape
Plastic Drop Cloth
Please view the wonderful Utah County Mom's Blog for more information.  

20. Twister - Cut a hole in the bottom of a medium sized box. Use spray paint and make a row of each color (yellow, red, blue, green) in the grass. Now you have your own game of outdoor Twister!
Supplies:
Yellow Spray Paint
Red Spray Paint
Blue Spray Paint
Green Spray Paint
Scissors
Medium Sized box (to cut a hole in the bottom)

21. Bean Bag Toss - Use an old sheet or a plastic tarp, cut out squares in the sheet/tarp and duck tape the edges. Label each hole with points and let your child through a bean bag or a ball through the holes to rack up points!
Supplies:
Bed Sheet or Plastic Tarp
Duck Tape
Scissors
Bean bag or Small ball

22. Earth Day Craft - On a blank piece of paper let your child make a tree for Earth Day! Glue a toilet paper roll as the trunk, green bunched up tissue paper as the leaves, and green tinsel as the grass.
Supplies:
Paper
Green Tissue Paper
Toilet Paper Roll
Green Tinsel
Glue

23. Cherry Blossom Bottle Art - Take an empty 2 liter soda bottle and dip the bottle into pink paint then press the bottom of the bottle onto a piece of paper to create flowers. Take a paint brush and draw the branches to connect the flowers.
Supplies:
Paper
Empty 2 liter bottle
Paper Plate (to hold paint)
Paint brush
Pink Paint (to dip bottom of bottle in)
Brown Paint (for branches)

24. Washer Ring Throw - Get a couple pail from the dollar store and line them up in a row. Give each pail a point value and have your child stand in front of the first pail (maybe a cpl inches to a foot away from it). Let your child throw washers (or ping pong balls which also work well) at the buckets and tally up the points that they earn! A version of this game is also featured at Chuck E. Cheese.
Supplies:
Six Dollar Store Pails/Buckets
Washers or Ping pong balls (either one to throw at buckets)
Sharpie (to label how many points each bucket/pail is worth)

25. Hand & Feet Flowers - On a blank piece of paper let your child paint grass and a green stem with a paint brush. Then using washable paint allow your child to saturate their hands in what ever color of paint they desire to be the flower and then place their hands on the stem where the flowers should be. Then wash their hands and let them dip their hands into green paint to create the leaves at the bottom of the stem.
Supplies:
Paper
Paper plate (to hold paint)
Green Paint (for stem and leaves)
Washable paint (any color that you want the flowers to be)
Paint brush

26. Egg Carton Lady Bugs -  Cut off each piece of a cardboard egg carton, allow your child to paint it a solid color and then take the black paint and draw a line down the piece to make separate wings, dot the wings with black also. Hot glue gun a black pom pom ball to the front of the egg carton/'wings' and then also hot glue gun on googly-eggs to the black pom pom.
Supplies:
Cardboard Egg Carton
Paint Brush
Water Cup
Black Paint (for dots)
Washable paint (any color you want your ladybug to be)
Black pom poms
Googly Eyes
Hot Glue Gun

27. Water Color Over White - Make a homemade Spring Surprise Painting book for your child. With a white crayon draw different images (butterfly, caterpillar, chick, flowers, etc.) on white paper and then with watercolors have your child paint everywhere on the white paper - this will reveal your hidden image! 
Supplies:
White Crayon
White Paper
Washable Watercolors
Paintbrush

28. Ping Pong Ball Match up - Paint 12 ping pong balls- 6 should be half red and half white and 6 should be half blue and half white. Using an empty egg carton, place all the ping pong balls inside and then draw a picture of all the ping pong balls in a random order and the red/blue/white facing in a certain direction for your child to match. Time your child and see how fast they can get it done. Give them a time to beat to make it fun!
Supplies:
Ping Pong Balls
Red & Blue Paint
Shallow container (to dip half the ping pong balls in paint)
Egg Carton
Paper or Index Card
Black, Red and Blue Crayon

Get more info from the original OT's Blog here!

29. Scavenger Hunt - Take pictures of/draw different items around the house/outside for your child to find. Give them a bag and send them on a hunt to find all the items.
Supplies:
Pictures of household objects or drawings of household objects
Whatever you can think up to be the items!
Cloth Bag

30. Butterfly and Bird Foot Art - Let your child dip their feet into whatever color washable paint they want to use. For the butterfly they need to put their right foot on the paper first and then their left foot almost touching the bridge of their right foot. Let them use a paint brush and draw the butterfly's body down the middle of the two feet and the butterfly's head and antenna.

For the bird - just use one foot and put it on the paper at an angle. With a paint brush connect the area under the bridge of the foot to make the bird's belly and then paint the birds head, beak and other features.
Supplies:
Paper
Washable Paint
Paper Plate (to put paint on)
Paint Brush