I'm hoping to make either Easter cookies or the Resurrection Rolls that Liz mentioned in the comments section of my blog last year. I did a search and found both recipes posted on one website, so here's the link for those recipes. I want to make one or both of these recipes as part of our Easter traditions, but that can be a challenge when you're not at home for Easter. We'll see what we can manage this year when we're out of town.
Resurrection Eggs
This year is my first time to delve into the fun of Resurrection Eggs. Last year, I had no idea what they were, but upon the advice of a friend, I picked up the eggs on deep discount at Lifeway the day after Easter.
Family Life's Resurrection Eggs are plastic easter eggs with small objects inside each egg. The objects are a tangible way to tell the Easter story and share the gospel with your children. I love the way these are packaged. They come in a hard plastic egg carton and the top lid tells the contents of every egg and the order they belong in, which is really helpful if you're a tad OCD like myself--it's a cinch to keep them organized. The package contains a booklet that explains the eggs and gives scripture references, and Family Life was smart enough to make the booklet the perfect size to fit in the egg carton, so it won't get lost.
At two years of age, Isabelle is still pretty young to understand the concepts in resurrection eggs. Still, she's having a blast with them. We don't open just one a day because she gets so excited about them, and yesterday, we spent quite a bit of time going through the entire carton, twice! It's her favorite thing to do every day, and I've learned not to start opening eggs before dinner or naptime, because she cries and pitches a fit when it's time to be done, and it makes it tough to transition to our next activity. Yes, we've reached that "fun" stage of being two!
Isabelle's favorite egg is the first one with the "gonkey" (donkey) in it. Ask her who rode the donkey, and she'll tell you "sheesus" (Jesus). I've explained to her that the people cried out "Hosanna in the highest!" but she just says "oh yeah highest!!" When she opens the egg with the leather strip, representing the whip, and I explain that they hurt Jesus with a whip, Izzy gets really sad. She doesn't grasp the Gospel, but because we read a lot of Bible stories, she understands Jesus as a hero, and it's sad to her that people would hurt him.
When she opens the egg with the cross of nails, Isabelle gets excited because she recognizes the cross, but she's sad again when I explain to her that Jesus died on a cross. Later, I make a big deal about Jesus being alive, but she doesn't really understand what life and death mean, so she's only catching onto my excitement. Other eggs, like one with silver coins or the empty resurrection egg mean nothing to her, and she just enjoys pretending to drink out of the one with the cup, or she'll make the "gonkey" drink out of it. She's definitely two!
It doesn't bother me that Isabelle doesn't understand Easter yet or the Resurrection Eggs, because we have to start somewhere. If she only picks up about 10% of the story this year, then we're making progress. In general, it's great to teach children slightly above their knowledge base. In my education classes, it was called scaffolding. You build on what they know, always teaching up. Don't assume that they can't handle information or are too young for it. If I assumed that, my two year old wouldn't know her numbers, letters, and shapes, including an octagon. I have no idea where she picked that up, but someone taught her about octagons while she was visiting with family recently, and she surprised me by pointing out an octagon this weekend. Kids are like sponges, so capitalize on it.
As Isabelle gets older, then she'll understand more and more about the Lord each year, and more importantly, we hope and pray that it's not just head knowledge, but that she will love Christ and accept His sacrifice on her behalf.
If you're looking for a fun way to tell the Easter story, pick up Resurrection Eggs. Kids love object lessons and will look forward to discovering what's inside the eggs.
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