On the First Day of Easter...

Our Homemade Resurrection Eggs

We had a set of resurrection eggs last year, but the children have played with them so much that the pieces have been lost. I was not willing to pay $17.99 for another set, so I made our own. There were lots of sites with ideas for homemade eggs, and I used a combination of different ideas that I found.




I used the carton from our store bought kit, but there were really cute ideas for decorating your own carton. I used eggs from the dollar store and wrote the numbers 1-12 on them. Inside, I placed the object for that day attached to a piece of yarn. Also inside each egg is Scripture verse for that object.




Our Objects and verses include:


1. A small branch with leaf -Matthew 21:8

2. Communion Cup - Matthew 26:1
3. Dime - Matthew 26:14-15
4. Feather - Matthew 26:34
5. Knotted piece of rope - Matthew 27:1-2

6. Purple cloth - Matthew 27:28
7. Cross - Matthew 27:31-32

8. Dice - Matthew 27:35-36

9. Sponge - Matthew 27:34

10. Spear - John 19:33-34
11. Rock - Matthew 28: 2

12. Empty Egg - Matthew 28:5-6


Our Homemade Easter Tree



Each day, the children open the egg for that day and place it on our Easter tree. We talk about the meaning of the object and read the Scripture verse. They also put the Scripture verse in the tree.




I got the idea for the Easter Tree from here.



To make our Easter tree, we found a branch from our yard. As I painted the branch white, the children painted the pot to put it in. They also painted some rocks from our yard to put in the pot.





It is definitly not the fanciest of Easter trees, but they worked hard. It serves it's purpose for us, and they are really excited about hanging the ornaments on it each day.


Our First Day activities...



After opening the first egg, talking about it, and hanging it on the tree, I had some more things planned for the kids.



We decorated their bedroom windows with Easter-themed window clings. Josiah had Cars, and Lexy had Tinker Bell. They thought these were great. Throughout the day, I would find Lexy in one of the rooms telling stories with the window clings using them like felt board pieces.



Lexy also colored a picture of the triumphal entry. I've been really proud of her coloring effort lately. She is taking her time and not rushing through it.



Book Basket: I've decided to do our book basket a little different this time. Each day I will read a new Easter/Spring themed book to them and add it to their basket, rather than having them all out in the basket to begin with. It seems like it takes the excitment out of reading the book for the first time when they've already looked through them all. So, we'll see how it goes. Today's book was "The Berenstain Bears and the Real Easter Eggs." Lexy has always enjoyed Berenstain Bear books.


We read the story of the triumphal entry using our large picture set. It is great having a mother who was a children's pastor for many years. We have tons of Bible resources!



The kids took donkey rides on Daddy and had a little parade.



Lexy did a puzzle/maze sheet. She had to get Jesus to Jerusalem following the pattern.




It was a great "first day of Easter" and I'm looking forward to the next 11 days! To see the other days, click the following links...

Day 2

To see what other preschoolers are up to, check out the Preschool Corner.

Making Preschool Games/Puzzles

I was very motivated last week with making some of our own tools. I found these ideas from links at Preschool Corner. If I could figure out how to put links on here, I would. However, for now I guess I'll just settle for putting pictures and descriptions.

These are lowercase letter puzzles. I downloaded the patterns for the letters, cut them out and then traced them onto foam pieces. Then, I cut out the pieces from foam pieces. Next, I would like to make the uppercase puzzles. I thought this was a cheap alternative to the wooden pieces made by "Handwriting without Tears."

lowercase foam alphabet puzzles


Next, I made an uppercase/lowercase letter match. I was pretty sure that Peaknuckle knew all her upper and lowercase letters; but, I had never had her do them all at once to see. To make it more interesting, I added the duck. She is way more likely to be excited about something if there is a pretend "piece" to it. We pretended the duck had accidently broken all of her eggs. She was very sad, and we had to help her put them all back together. Peaknuckle loved the thought of helping the duck and eagerly put the pieces together.



From "Explorations" (another blog I would link to if I knew how), I found this cute idea for a math game. It was a little easy for Peaknuckle, but she enjoyed it and it went along with our Fall Theme. We practiced adding while we did this. She enjoyed eating the pumpkin candy when we finished.




At my MOPS group, we made these cute "travel boxes." The metal boxes can be found at the dollar sections at Target or Michael's. I decorated one side with Cars and the other side with Princesses so both Peaknuckle and Bean would be pleaased. Inside we placed foam shapes with magnets on the back. I was surprised at how entertaining this was to both children while we drove. It also worked well for entertaining them in a restraunt. Peaknuckle liked to make pictures with them. Bean enjoyed making a mess out of them.






I enjoyed making our own resources to use. I felt crafty and frugal :) If only sleep were not necessary, I could do a lot more of this!