Hi Mommy Teachers! I hope you all enjoyed a fabulous Easter! Many of you may have kids on Spring Break now, or perhaps your Spring Break was last week like my oldest’s was, or if you don’t get a Mardi Gras holiday like we do in Louisiana, yours may have been several weeks ago. Or if you don’t have a child in school, then perhaps every week is Spring Break… or not. What is a break when you’re a mom anyway?
Easter was so much fun this year for my family! The night before Easter, our family had our 4th Annual Glow-in-the-Dark Easter Egg Hunt with friends! While I read from our Jesus Storybook Bible about Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection, the dads threw hundreds of glow-in-the-dark eggs in the field. Jesus is the light in the darkness…great reminder!
This year, for our egg hunt on Easter morning, we decided to hide 12 Scripture Eggs, or Resurrection Eggs. We followed the guidelines from Your Homebased Mom’s post for the Easter Scripture Egg Activity. She shares a list of items/symbols to include in each of your eggs to have a visual element to better connect to each scripture, the twelfth egg being empty to represent the empty tomb. Her post also includes a PDF that you can print out with each of the scriptures on it.
I know that this post is after Easter, but I wanted to share with you how we adapted wonderful activity to our family and how my kids processed it. Be sure to pin it to your Easter and Holiday Pinterest boards for next year!
My kids are 7, 5 and 2 and so I decided to hide three sets of Scripture Eggs to avoid a huge fight over who gets to learn about Jesus ;-). I used 12 blue, 12 green, and 12 pink eggs and each of my kids knew which color they were searching for. My kids each got a symbol in their eggs, but I rotated which kid got the scripture reference in his/her egg. My husband had an New International Version (NIV) Bible open (or you can search for your favorite translation online) because the King James Version (KJV) can be confusing for the kids.
The kids were instructed to find the eggs, but not to open them. When all the eggs were found, we sat down together and opened one egg at a time in order. I loved hearing my 7-year-old say, “Hey! There’s nothing in my 12!” and then the light bulb went off seconds later, “Oooooh because the tomb was empty!”
The whole family really did enjoy this activity! There was a bigger purpose and defined focus for what each egg represented than years past when we filled the eggs with candy… and even my 2-year-old caught on. When my oldest was joking around like they do on VeggieTales saying, “Easter is for chocolate bunnies,” my 2-year-old was the one who corrected him, “No, Easter is for Jesus!”
I have noticed that Elf lovers and Elf haters BOTH have something in common… they are happy with their own way of doing things. Casey has great Elf ideas (that even incorporate Bible verses), and Krista is an example of someone who all of you Elf-Haters could relate to. I am not Pro Elf or Anti Elf.
I think I might even fit into a whole new category.
I’m just kind of an observer of all things elf. So, when I saw these elves, I bought them but I didn’t have any intention of doing the Elf on the Shelf thing.
I actually had a few different ideas in mind:
1) To give them as gifts this year to friends, each holding Personalized Chocolate Bar with caricatures of our family dressed as elves. (I was really proud when I came up with this gift idea!)
2) To tell our kids that Santa sent us elf toys to take with us each time we go to do something special for Christmas (like picking out a Christmas tree, caroling, taking pictures with Santa, or going to parties). If I forget to take them, we will just tell our elves all about them when we get home. Each child gets their own elf and it is simply a plush toy – no magic involved.
3) To decorate with the little cuties.
4) To make boring spots of our house fun and festive…. like the microwave. I love that their hands velcro together.
There isn’t going to be much more to it than that for me, but this was exactly the elf I had been looking for if I was ever going to consider including Elves in our holiday traditions or household.
But maybe you do want this to be your Elf on the Shelf and in that case, CLICK HERE and go buy them. 🙂
Head’s up! Father’s day is THIS WEEKEND, not next like I kept telling myself. My son had this brilliant idea to buy my husband some outdoor speakers for Father’s Day, which I really thought was a great idea (something I would enjoy too), but have you checked out the prices for those babies? Yeah – it’s like the cost of formula for a year. Not gonna happen.
Keep on brainstorming… Well, one thing my husband and I have always wanted is a rain chain… especially the copper ones that hang from beautiful, expensive copper gutters that we don’t have (as seen here in this video). And those can be upwards of $100 or more… also not going to happen.
So, I decided that we are going to forego the pretty copper and make our own! And I always say, “who can resist something handmade by kids?” Let’s take a zero off of that $100 and make something similar for $10!
Supplies: 6 or more small terra cotta pots, 2 – 36″ extender chains for hanging planters
My kids and I picked up these small terra cotta pots from the Dollar General for $1 each. They thought these were beautiful with the flowers painted on them… but I thought “eek!” we can paint that… which they were ok with since I mentioned they would be the ones painting them.
We bought 6 of them (because that’s what they had) and it makes a pretty decent length for a rain chain in my opinion. We also purchased 36″ extender chains for hanging planters from the Dollar General which was $1.50… so we got 2 of them and got to work!
Make sure that your pots have holes in the bottom because that is essential for this project for the chain to go through, and for the water to drain as well (because this is also a functional project).
The chain links are supposed to be bigger than the hole so your pots do not slip down the chain. But how do you get the chain through the hole?
Using pliers I removed the link where I wanted my pot to rest. I took that link and squished one side down which was the perfect size to go through the pot.
I put about 5-6 links between one pot and the next.
Then my kids wanted to do some more painting so I let them have at it 🙂
This project probably took us about 30 minutes. I will probably also get a large saucer and put some river rocks in it to collect water on the ground. A nice little . to the ! (But then this would be more than a $10 project).
Extra: Extra tip means extra $$. If you want to seal the paint, use a clear matte acrylic spray paint that you can find at stores that sell spray paint (Walmart, Home Depot, Hobby Lobby, etc.).
Happy Fathers Day to all of you Daddy Teachers and to all the Mommy Teachers who play both roles!
If you are looking for an activity to re-use those eggs from the egg hunts… look no further.
I love my artsy friend Allie and all the ways she crafts with her kids. Keep reading because she inspired me to do this with my kids today and that is what The Mommy Teacher is all about:
“My girls, AvaKate (3) and Addie (2), absolutely love doing crafts. They would do them all day long if I let them. So, when we woke up this morning, they asked to paint.
We painted yesterday, so I wanted to do something a little different.
They had an Easter egg hunt at school yesterday and I wanted to reuse those annoying, oh I mean amazing, plastic eggs before I secretly threw them away, I mean put them back in their baskets (any Moms with me??).
I took them apart and let them dip it into finger paint (easier clean up) and it made circles on their paper. Addie is really into shapes so she got really excited to see the shapes on her paper. Very simple, but it was exciting for the girls to incorporate their eggs from their egg hunt.
You can also see in the picture little pieces of string and paper. My oldest, AvaKate is obsessed with decorating and making gifts… So those elements were her specific request.
I put some glue on their plate and gave them a paint brush and they “decorated” their art. They loved it! And I loved it because it was all stuff I had around the house and it kept them occupied while I nursed my six week old!”
