This is a good time to have your children invite school and neighborhood friends for a party where you can share the gospel with them and/or give them something that tells about Easter and the real events surrounding it. Have an Easter Egg Hunt at your home or in a neighboring park. Toward the end of all the fun, ask everyone to sit down so you can tell a true story. In a way that will be interesting to them, depending on their age, explain how Jesus went to the cross, died, and rose again so we could go to heaven to be with Him. Make sure you mention that no one is good enough to get to heaven because they have been good. You might want to use puppets or pictures to help you tell the story.
Food
Serve carrots with spinach dip (recipe in recipe section) or any dip you like.
Make egg salad or deviled eggs.
Make white cupcakes with white frosting and decorate with jellybeans.
Make sugar cookies in the shape of a cross, bunny, chick, or flower.
Decorations
Decorate with bunnies, chicks, flowers, colorful eggs (plastic or real), baskets; pastel-colored balloons, tablecloths, napkins, cups, streamers.
Games
Divide the group into two teams. Ask participants to squat down on the floor. The person at the head of the line has to jump over each player. When he/she gets to the end, he/she must squat down. The person behind them in line does the same thing. Play continues until each person has jumped over their teammates. First team to finish wins.
Jelly Bean Guess - Fill a clear jar with jelly beans. Ask each person to guess how many beans are in the jar. The person with the number closest to the correct amount wins.
Pin the tail on the bunny – get a large picture or poster of a bunny. Use cotton balls or make rabbit tails. Blindfold each contestant and ask them to place the tail on the bunny. Person closest to the spot wins.
Egg Hunt - Hide colored hard-boiled eggs or plastic eggs with a prize or little candies inside around the house or yard. Have players find them. Person with the most wins.
Egg Race - Divide the group into teams. Give each team a tablespoon and a plastic or hard-boiled egg. Have players put the egg on the tablespoon and race to a designated spot and then back to their team. They are not allowed to hold the egg onto the spoon. Each player proceeds the same way until everyone on the team participates. First team to finish wins.
How to Prepare a Hard Boiled Egg:
Don’t laugh; there is more to it than you think. Place eggs in a pan, cover with cold water and pour in some vinegar or salt. The vinegar will keep the eggs from oozing out if shells crack while cooking. Bring to boil and remove from heat. Let set in covered pan for 15 minutes. Drain off water. Now shake the pan back and forth, causing the eggs to crack against the sides. Cool with cold water and peel.
For more "eggscellent" hints, click here!
Decorated Hard Boiled Eggs:
One color Easter Eggs
Use glass or metal cups or bowls to color the eggs in. Have a disposable plastic or metal spoon to turn egg in cup. Put down something to protect the surface you are coloring the eggs on. Disposable plastic tablecloths work well. You’ll get the best results if you dye the eggs while they are hot.
For single color eggs use:
2/3 cup hot water
2 T. white vinegar
1/8 – 1/4 t. food coloring or 15 drops
Mix food coloring in cups to make different colors.
To get more than one color on an egg –
Dip egg in color. Let the egg dry. Dip the ends or each side in another color.
Tie-dyed Easter Eggs
Boil the eggs and let them cool. Tear small pieces of bleeding tissue paper. While eggs are still wet, place small pieces of tissue paper to cover the egg. Let it dry. Peel off tissue paper.
Taken from: Rosalind Creasy,
Los Altos,
California
http://www.motherearthnews.com
HOW TO COLOR EASTER EGGS WITH NATURAL DYE
When Alex, my
10-year-old grandson, came to stay with me during spring break, he was eager to
color Easter eggs. Also, I hadn’t seen Jody Main, my friend and an Easter egg
maven, for far too long — what a perfect excuse for a visit!
When we entered Jody’s
farmhouse kitchen, there was a table with teacups full of dyes and a big bowl
of eggs ready to go. Alex and I had great fun, and we learned a lot that
afternoon about colors and which combinations produce which colors. We went
home with cartons full of unique eggs.
After years of dyeing
eggs using a wide range of botanical sources, Jody had streamlined the dyeing
procedure. She had narrowed the necessary ingredients down to three — fresh red
beets, yellow onion skins and frozen blueberries. That’s all she needed to
produce the primary colors: red, yellow and blue. By combining the resulting
dyes in varying amounts, she can create any color of the rainbow. You can do
it, too!
Dyeing and Decorating Tips
Follow the recipes below
to make the dyes, using individual stainless steel, glass or enamel saucepans
for each color. Combine the ingredients and boil each color mixture separately
for 15 minutes before dyeing eggs. The vinegar acts as a fixative — without it,
the dyes won’t stick to the eggs.
• Before dyeing, hard
boil white eggs and let them cool.
• For uniform color,
strain each dye mixture through cheesecloth or a fine strainer.
• For a mottled,
tie-dyed or spotty effect, leave all the ingredients in the pans.
• Use crayons to make
designs — circles, geometrics, your name — on the egg;
the crayoned part will
not take up any dye. White crayons work especially well.
• The longer the eggs
remain in the dye, the deeper the color.
• For special effects,
dip half the egg in one color, the other half in another.
Coloring Easter eggs
with natural dyes was a fabulous way to teach Alex about colors. When he went
home, I sent along the ingredients he’d need so he could share his experience
with his friends and parents. Happy Easter!
Recipes for Natural Dyes for
Easter Eggs
RED
2 cups beets, grated
1
tbsp. white vinegar
2
cups water
Substitute:
strong Red Zinger tea, or chopped fresh or frozen cranberries
YELLOW TO GOLD
3 large handfuls of
yellow/brown onion skins
1
tbsp. white vinegar
3 cups
water
Substitute:
strong chamomile tea, or 2 to 3 tbsp. ground turmeric
BLUE
1 pound frozen
blueberries, crushed
1
tbsp white vinegar
2 cups
water
Substitute:
red cabbage leaves, coarsely chopped, create lavender
OTHER COLORS
Mix combinations of the
primary dyes (in separate cups) to make secondary colors: red and yellow for
orange, yellow and blue for green, and blue and red for violet. The proportion
of one color to the other determines the shade.
Easter/Resurrection Cookies
For those with little ones, a good illustration of the resurrection, with tasty cookies too.
TO BE MADE THE NIGHT BEFORE EASTER only to finish on Easter morning...
Recipe:
BE SURE TO PRE-HEAT OVEN to
300 degrees before you start the cookies.
1 cup whole pecans
1 teaspoon vinegar
3 egg whites
pinch salt
1 cup sugar
zipper baggie
wooden spoon
tape
Bible
Directions:
REMEMBER... Preheat oven to 300 (this is important-don't wait until you're half done with the recipe)
Now, Place pecans in zipper baggie and let children beat them with wooden spoon to break into small pieces. Explain that after Jesus was arrested he was beaten by the Roman soldiers.
Read John 19:1-3.
Let each child smell the vinegar. Put 1 tsp. vinegar into mixing bowl. Explain that when Jesus was thirsty on the cross he was given vinegar to drink.
Read John 19:28-30.
Add egg whites to vinegar. Eggs represent life. Explain that Jesus gave His life to give us life.
Read John 10:10-11.
Sprinkle a little salt into each child's hand. Let them taste it and brush the rest into the bowl. Explain that this represents the salty tears shed by Jesus' followers, and the bitterness of our own sin.
Read Luke 23:27.
So far the ingredients are not very appetizing. Add 1 C. sugar. Explain that the sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died because He loves us. He wants us to know and belong to Him.
Read Psalms 34:8 and John 3:16.
Beat with a mixer on high speed for 12 to 15 minutes until stiff peaks are formed. Explain that the color white represents the purity in God's eyes of those whose sins have been cleansed by Jesus.
Read Isaiah 1:18 and John 3:1-3.
Fold in broken nuts. Drop by teaspoon onto waxed paper covered cookie sheet. Explain that each mound represents the rocky tomb where Jesus' body was laid.
Read Matthew 27:57-60.
Put the cookie sheet in the oven, close the door and turn the oven OFF. Give each child a piece of tape and seal the oven door. Explain that Jesus tomb was sealed.
Read Matthew 27:65-66.
GO TO BED! Explain that they may feel sad to leave the cookies in the oven overnight. Jesus' followers were in despair when the tomb was sealed.
Read John 16:20 and 22.
On Easter morning, open the oven and give everyone a cookie.
"Notice the cracked surface and take a bite. The cookies are hollow!" On the first Easter Jesus' followers were amazed to find the tomb open and empty.
Read Matthew 28:1-9.