DLTK's Holiday Crafts for Kids
Easter Egg Patterning Paper Craft

Easter Egg Patterning Craft

Paper strip patterning makes a deceptively simple Easter egg craft for preschool and kindergarten children.

On the one hand it's fun and is great for decorating a wall or bulletin board during the Easter season.

On the other hand it's educational, helping children practice color recognition and pattern making.  You can also add in some scissor skills practice by letting the kids cut out their own paper strips.

I like to use a full sheet of paper for this (rather than making smaller eggs) as it gives the kids the chance to practice their pattern a bit more with inch-wide paper strips that are easy to work with.

Materials:

Instructions:

Ways to create your pattern:

  1. Provide the pattern to the children:
     
    • children learn differently, so the "best" way to provide the pattern will be different depending on how many children you're working with and how they learn.  My kids tended to like verbal instructions from mom and dad (but that's a situation of one on one attention).  Groups of children often do better with a written key and/or partially completed example to look at.
       
      Verbal instructions: great for colors practice -- the adult or older child calls out the next color in the pattern.  The young children pick that color strip from their pile of cut strips and

      Pattern Key:  Here's what I mean by a "pattern key" 
      pattern key
       
      Partially completed example:
      example of a partially completed craft
  2. Allow the children to create their own pattern. 

    Pattern recognition is an important part of a child's development and they all do it by the time they're preschoolers (though sometimes they don't realize they are).  One of the first patterns my daughter Tasha identified was that bedtime comes after supper.  Pretty much as soon as she could talk, she'd finish her supper with the statement, "no bed yet", hehe.
     
    Don't be frustrated if your child can't form a pattern with the paper strips or if their pattern is simple (red, blue, red, blue).  Different kids develop at different rates and enjoy different types of patterns.  There's nothing wrong with that!
     
    Don't worry about correcting them if they do the craft "wrong":
     
    • just file away for future reference that you might want to provide them with and reinforce the idea of patterns a few times in the future before letting them try to make their own again.
    • Future patterning practice can be in crafting but can also be while doing things like playing with Lego together or getting dressed.
       
      "Look!  Mommy picked a shirt with a pattern.  See... it has a blue stripe, then a white stripe, then a blue stripe, then a white stripe."
    • If you notice them creating patterns during play time, make sure you point it out to them.  Many children start creating patterns before they can identify that they're doing it.  Be specific about the pattern you notice.
       
      "Oh!  I love the pattern you made with your legos.  I see you put together a tower with a blue block, then a yellow block, then a blue block, then a yellow block.  Good job!  That's a great pattern."
    • And remember that red-red-blue red-red-blue counts as a pattern too!

Craft Templates:

Egg Template

 

If you like, you can make the same type of project with a Cross Template as well.

 

Printable version of these instructions