This year it didn’t rain for our Easter egg hunt!! Thus, we got to have it outside…and not just outside, but on one of the loveliest university lawns ever!
The Setting
The Hunt
Our Family Pic
Easter Activities for Kids
2011
Here’s another re-post from last year…this time about teaching and celebrating Easter with your small children.
Teaching Easter
Now that Rebekah {and Luke, too!} is getting older, she is asking a lot of theological questions. It suddenly hit me that I am her source of information and like I trust Josh to tell me what’s going on on the world, she trusts me to teach her the basics, too. I am her number 1 source for info on Jesus, so I have been thinking about Easter a lot. I love reading to her and have found that she loves, loves, loves anything crafty (ie involving colors, paper, stickers, scissors, and glue). She has also been my little kitchen helper for about 2 years, so we like baking together. So, that said, I thought I would share with you some of our resources for celebrating Easter this year. I want her to know that the reason WE celebrate Easter is to rejoice at the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I am not opposed to candy and Easter egg hunts, I just don’t want that to be all she associates with the weekend.
Crafts
Each day of Easter week, we’re going to talk about a different part of the week and days leading up to the cross, and ultimately the resurrection of Christ. I found a great free resource for thematic Easter coloring sheets. I think I prefer this site, though, because you can print simple pictures with corresponding Biblical text, which helps you simplify the explanation. I plan on reading about the events surrounding the cross in Rebekah’s children’s Bible first and then using the coloring pages to retell the story. She will color some and probably cut out others. We may even do some sort of linear collage to represent the chronological order. We’ll see.
I also love this angel rolled the stone away craft:
Here’s a fun site for secular Easter crafts (bunnies, etc.) if you want to supplement. My theory is that most people connote bunnies and eggs with Easter, so as long as Rebekah knows that’s not what it’s really about, I’m not going to kill myself shielding her from it.
Baking
As for the baking side of things, who doesn’t love an easy, yummy treat? I found this site last year and we made eggs. This year the bunnies are lookin’ pretty cute. I did realize that I never put enough marshmallows in, so this year we’re going with a 1:1 ratio (adding a lot more) for softer rice krispie treats. Thanks, Kate, for the suggestion.
Andrea just sent me this Resurrection Baking recipe, which looks so fun and incorporates baking and the story of Jesus! Each step of making the cookies represents some part of the crucifixion or resurrection, including leaving he cookies in the closed oven (tomb) overnight and feeling sad about that (as His followers must have been).
The Weekend of Easter
At our Wednesday play group, we’re going to dye Easter eggs. Then, that night, the mums will get together to stuff the plastic eggs, which incidentally can be difficult (and pricey) to find here. We did get some, though. On Saturday, everyone in AWF and their families are invited to an Easter egg hunt on campus, then a picnic. We have several hunts going on: one for the little littles, one for the big little, and one for the big bigs (adults)! It should be crazy fun. I learned about Resurrection Eggs from my mentor and friend, Carrie, so we are going to make our own and throw those in the mix, too. I loved being a part of her family 2 years ago as her 5 kids and added neighborhood kids hunted for eggs, enjoyed their loot, and then sat down to piece together the story of the resurrection. It really touched me, and I am so excited to implement that as part of our tradition, too!
Here are the duck eggs we dyed last year…tho this year we’re going to try with British brown eggs and just leave them in the dye longer.
On the hunt…
2010
Yesterday: The Hunt
Rebekah woke up so excited to hunt for Easter eggs! I was super-blessed to mention planning Easter stuff to Rachel Nigh, who is a rock star at making anything fun- she organized the whole shebang and stockpiled eggs and toys/candy. The ideal plan was to hide eggs on King’s Lawn (the big green field we adore) and to picnic afterward. However, since Scotland weather is almost always rainy so unpredictable, we did have back-up plan to hide the eggs at the University Chaplaincy and picnic indoors. Indeed it was rainy, so a few of us met at the Chaplaincy and hide eggs all over the building- Rachel even ha the fun idea to hide 12 golden eggs for adults, which contained larger prizes, such as money or good eats. Inside each golden egg was a theological quote, too, you had to match to the theologian, whose pictures she quickly sketched (see below). We all had a lot of fun finding all the eggs.
Ready to hunt for eggs!
So was little buddy.
It was really fun to see Luke collect all the "Balls!"
Finding lots of loot.
Opening eggs.
They had a blast finding toys and candy inside.
Kate, Christy, and me in our purple.
Name that theologian...and his words.
Rebekah and her new pal, Mercy. They love each other.
Katrina and Duncan- we are excited to meet baby #2 in a few weeks!
Rachel (party-thrower extraordinaire) and Calvin (the 7 year old whom Rebekah "just loves so much."
Joshua and Abigail
Rebekah and Elisha
Today: Easter baskets
On our way to Easter morning baskets.
Rebekah thanked us all day for her basket!
Luke was excited about bubbles and candy.
I have been saving this suit for a year for today- didn't disappoint. 
Look at that face.
My good friend, Kate, took a family pic of us this morning at church I will post later- hope you are having as nice and relaxing a day as we are!!
Easter Week
2010
I posted about our Easter Activities last week, so I thought I would show you some of the things we did actually do.
Rebekah usually goes to nursery (aka preschool) 12:45-3:15 every afternoon. We essentially have year-round school, so we had a 2-week Easter Break. So, since Luke normally naps 1-3, Rebekah and I had to work out what she was going to do. Most days she had some “quiet time” in her room while I worked, and then I would get her and we would do our Easter crafts or baking. It worked really well. I did print coloring sheets for telling the Easter story and we read from her Bible. We loved the Rolling Away the Stone activity and she gets really excited to tell you about, “Do not be afraid! Jesus is not here! His daddy raised him!” Rebekah is very Jesus-savvy in her understanding of Easter now.
We also had an Easter egg dyeing party at play group at Rachel Nigh’s. Rachel and I went to Costco earlier in the week to procure white duck eggs since British eggs are brown. While the duck eggs were indeed a beautiful, smooth white, their smoothness made dyeing not take as well. It was still fun!
Play Group Easter Egg Dyeing
Rachel did a great job of having all the stuff for the kids to dye eggs!
Rebekah looked forward to "carving" Easter eggs all week!
Showing off her dyed hands.
The duck egges turned out well, they just weren't as porous, so some of the color bled off.
Speaking of eggs, I made deviled eggs for after our Easter egg hunt today!
How Rebekah sees the crucifixion....not sure if colorful is the best interpretation, but I'm sure Jesus understands a child's heart.
We loved the hands-on empty tomb activity! We used the angel and the women from an earlier activity to add to the meaning.
We also made Rice Krispie treats.
But they were too gooey (read that delicious) to shape into anything, so we just did normal squares. We did add sprinkles, tho!
Today we have our Easter egg hunt with the other families, and we will do Resurrection Eggs with them, too. We may have gone slightly overboard- we have 250 eggs to hide for 10 kids (including several smaller toddlers)! Oh well! Props to Rachel Nigh for being so creative and on the ball for gathering and organizing the stuffing of said eggs.
Tonight, Rebekah and I will make the Resurrection Cookies Andrea sent the recipe for. I am excited for that, too! Thanks again, Andrea!
I will post pics of all the activities and the kids in their Easter best tomorrow, so be sure to check back!
Easter Activities with Preschoolers
2010
Don’t forget about the Tea & Shortbread Give-Away!
Teaching Easter
Now that Rebekah is getting older, she is asking a lot of theological questions. It suddenly hit me that I am her source of information and like I trust Josh to tell me what’s going on on the world, she trusts me to teach her the basics, too. I am her number 1 source for info on Jesus, so I have been thinking about next week a lot. I love reading to her and have found that she loves, loves, loves anything crafty (ie involving colors, paper, stickers, scissors, and glue). She has also been my little kitchen helper for about 2 years, so we like baking together. So, that said, I thought I would share with you some of our resources for celebrating Easter this year. I want her to know that the reason WE celebrate Easter is to rejoice at the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I am not opposed to candy and Easter egg hunts, I just don’t want that to be all she associates with the weekend.
Crafts
Each day next week, we’re going to talk about a different part of the week and days leading up to the cross, and ultimately the resurrection of Christ. I found a great free resource for thematic Easter coloring sheets. I think I prefer this site, though, because you can print simple pictures with corresponding Biblical text, which helps you simplify the explanation. I plan on reading about the events surrounding the cross in Rebekah’s children’s Bible first and then using the coloring pages to retell the story. She will color some and probably cut out others. We may even do some sort of linear collage to represent the chronological order. We’ll see.
I also love this angel rolled the stone away craft.
Here’s a fun site for secular Easter crafts (bunnies, etc.) if you want to supplement. My theory is that most people connote bunnies and eggs with Easter, so as long as Rebekah knows that’s not what it’s really about, I’m not going to kill myself shielding her from it.
Baking
As for the baking side of things, who doesn’t love an easy, yummy treat? I found this site last year and we made eggs. This year the bunnies are lookin’ pretty cute. I did realize that I never put enough marshmallows in, so this year we’re going with a 1:1 ratio (adding a lot more) for softer rice krispie treats. Thanks, Kate, for the suggestion.
Andrea just sent me this Resurrection Baking recipe, which looks so fun and incorporates baking and the story of Jesus! Each step of making the cookies represents some part of the crucifixion or resurrection, including leaving he cookies in the closed oven (tomb) overnight and feeling sad about that (as His followers must have been).
Not sure how colourful British brown eggs will end up being...
The Weekend of Easter
At our Wednesday play group, we’re going to dye Easter eggs. Then, that night, the mums will get together to stuff the plastic eggs, which incidentally can be difficult (and pricey) to find here. We did get some, though. On Saturday, everyone in AWF and their families are invited to an Easter egg hunt on campus, then a picnic. We have several hunts going on: one for the little littles, one for the big little, and one for the big bigs (adults)! It should be crazy fun. I learned about Resurrection Eggs from my mentor and friend, Carrie, so we are going to make our own and throw those in the mix, too. I loved being a part of her family 2 years ago as her 5 kids and added neighborhood kids hunted for eggs, enjoyed their loot, and then sat down to piece together the story of the resurrection. It really touched me, and I am so excited to implement that as part of our tradition, too!
