Easter: Pre-k 4

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Jessica's Week:

Well, it didn’t quite feel like Easter around here between the weather and simple fact that we just finished putting away all our St. Patrick’s day supplies but we sure did our best to make the most of a shortened Easter season. We made it to seven egg hunts around town (several of them required kids to shovel or kick frozen eggs out of the snow lol….there’s a first time for everything)  and tried some unique ones here at home too. Taegan needed new figures for her outdoor fairy garden so I bought another Tinkerbell busy book and hid the 12 plastic fairies in clear eggs with tiny glow sticks. We did this hunt in the basement after dark using only a flashlight. It was really magical to see all the tiny fairy lights glowing and T LOVED switching her flashlight on and off trying to navigate around and find them. We hid a few eggs with candy wrapped grapes in her bedroom since Easter fell on April Fools Day. Taegan was amused with the first egg but got a little upset by the rest 😉. I ended up sneaking one grape back out to substitute for a chocolate just to brighten her mood lol. We did a few more traditional hunts but instead of filling the rest of the plastic eggs with candy I opted to purchase some small lego sets and divide their pieces/figures among eggs. The bunny left empty lego boxes inside her basket with instructions to find all the hidden pieces. A perfect way to avoid stocking up on sweets or tiny junk toys. Hidden in the grass at the VERY bottom of her basket was a tiny egg with only a slip of paper inside. It started a riddle hunt that took T around the yard hunting for clue filled eggs that led her to a second more exciting Easter basket carefully hidden behind a tree. I realize this sounds like a lot for one four year old but I LOVE holidays and wanted it to be extra creative since we skipped our annual Easter party this spring on account of cold wet weather.  

We did some big stuff to appreciate the true reason for Easter as well. I finally found a resource that did a nice job of making Passover meaningful and achievable for Christian kids. Taegan helped me prepare a Seder plate and cook a special meal to eat like Jesus did so many years ago. After we ate we read about the Garden at Gethsemane and how Jesus spent his last night. Then on Good Friday I put a red dot on our palms as a reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice. We did a neat nature hunt in the rain which involved gathering a palm leaf, thorn branch and other meaningful symbols of the Easter story. We asked daddy to help fashion a simple wooden cross with predrilled holes. I gave T five post-its and asked her to draw pictures of sins or something naughty she has done and felt sorry for. She chose: not being responsible (refusing to pick up her toys), selfishness (being unkind to a friend), disobedience (not eating her dinner),  poor attitude (throwing a temper tantrum), and  fear (refusing to jump to her swim teacher in pool and not showing bravery). I was impressed that they were all very different and recent instances of sin and all things she was legit showing remorse over. She nailed her sins to the cross as I explained how Jesus paid the price for our sin when he was nailed and died on the cross. You need only confess to him, ask for God’s forgiveness and try to do better in the future then you can receive new life in Christ. For a preschooler, I think this activity was as close as we are going to get to her understanding salvation. It also made Easter morning extra special as we moved away from the somber mood of GF to celebrate our risen Lord in all his glory!
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The week was filled with dozens of other Easter learning activities from resurrection eggs to jellybean syllables and balance scale bunnies. You can read more about all those in the pdf but I wanted to focus this blog on the stuff even non-homeschooling families can do to enhance learning and life for their children. So I hope you take some of these celebration ideas and run with them….and be sure to comment with your own creative Easter suggestions below! 

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Ana's Week 

This year, Easter felt extra special in our house. Partly because we have two girls who both really embraced all of the activities that we did to celebrate the holidays, but also because Aria has really embraced her love of Jesus and all of the stories about him. It’s really awesome to watch the kids do all of the silly Easter bunny games and hunts out there, but I am really proud that she seems to slowly be learning the reason for the season even at such a young age. My mom also surprised us on Saturday with a short Easter visit, so it was fun to do some activities with her and attend church all together. Easter has lost some of its magic for me since childhood, but after this year, I feel renewed excitement in celebrating Easter Sunday and what it really means while still having a blast and being silly!

We started and ended the week with doing some great Easter crafts together as a family at a local pottery place called Bare Ware. The week before Easter, we went to a story time and made Easter bunny hand print plates. The girls had fun, though Aria was more invested than Skylar in actually doing the work. While there, Zach saw some eggs to paint and thought they were cute, so we went back the next week, picked up our plates, and each painted an egg. They have amazing customer service there and were sweet enough to give us a new free egg when Skylar broke her first one. I love activities that the whole family can do together!

Many of our favorite Easter activities this year were based around silly science experiments and food activities. We did some awesome peep science experiments, and for a person who hates peeps, it was fun to watch them get destroyed! The peep playdough didn’t quite turn out the consistency that it looked like it should have according to the recipe we used, but the girls enjoyed getting their hands dirty and getting an opportunity to use their Easter cookie cutters. We dyed Easter eggs three ways, and I have to say that even though making natural egg dye is harder, it turns out far prettier than the store bought eggs. Plus, Aria really loved all of the steps that it took and helped with each part. The easiest and most beautiful by far was whipped cream dyed eggs! Aria loved the beautiful tie dye colors she created. And if I haven’t mentioned my love of the show Creative Galaxy before (it is an Amazon show), let me mention it now. The show is all about an alien who makes crafts, and at the end of each episode they show children how to do the crafts themselves at home. Aria watched the show and decided that she needed to make a cauliflower bunny just like Arty and told me all of the veggies to cut up for its face. Then, she proceeding to eat the veggies and even try some raw cauliflower. I’m always so happy when Aria can get inspired to create…and eat her veggies too!

I still absolutely love the resurrection eggs, and I think they really helped Aria to learn the story of Easter even better this year. While Skylar had her weekly My Gym class, Aria entertained herself by looking through the eggs and showing other kids who were off for Easter the parts of the Easter story. The Easter prayer jellybean jar was also a fun treat, and Aria would pick up a color, ask what to pray for, and then pray according to the instructions. I was so proud of her. We also took Jessica’s idea from last year of making a resurrection garden and made our own with hand painted crosses and some of our Bible figurines. I love it when we can create a physical example of a story, as I am personally a tactile learner and believe Aria is one too.

If you’ve never watched Veggie Tales, I think the movies they make are such a great complement to the season and make learning about Easter so fun for kids. Between the Bible unit we did and Easter week, we have watched a number of Veggie Tales movies, and I love when we can keep the media really clean and moral based in our house!

As we do each Easter, we finished the week with a visit from the Easter bunny, a scavenger hunt (this year I used a really cute Christ-based one that you can see in the Miscellaneous section of the lesson plans), and an Easter egg hunt. We did a few candy eggs, but the big prize was the basket of toys (bubbles, craft supplies, learning toys, and the absolute favorite was a David and Goliath set). We followed all this of course with church! What a great celebration…already can’t wait until next year when we get to celebrate again!