Our family celebrates the Sabbath, and this activity was a fun addition to our day. We spent the early part of the day exploring local beaches. If you've never done this in the winter, and you live by any bodies of water, you simply must. We're just twenty minutes from Lake Huron, and a frozen lake is a beautiful example of God's handiwork. (I'll share more on this in a different post.) After our winter exploring we came home and enjoyed lunch together. Then, we all gathered in the family room. I had already advance prepped the balloon activity from the curriculum. We read the story from the paperback Adventure Book that we received as part of our review. I was worried that the story would be too long to hold their attention, but the kids were interested in what the story had to say, and they loved looking at the colorful illustrations on each page. The story did a good job preparing us for the Glow in the Dark Easter Egg hunt. The more we got into it the more excited they got, and it provided us a nice platform for discussing the reason we celebrate Easter as Christians.
I like to educate my children on the history of our holidays, and the Adventure Book is a good launching board for such discussions. My original plan was to do this with my brood of grandchildren that always come celebrate St. Patrick's Day with us. On occasion we have an egg hunt since we do not get together for Easter. When it's nice out it's a fun way to get the children outside running around and having fun. However, we needed this review done early with Easter coming early this year, and despite previous years showing off the grass in mid-March, we are still knee deep in snow. (I did walk outside in a t-shirt, capris and flip-flops today to get the sleds out for my children to play outside. Only in the Midwest, people!) With all these things in mind, we held the event as a Sabbath activity for our children, and we just had fun with it. The Curriculum Download is packed full of activities and instructions for planning and hosting a large outreach event for a group of families should that be your desire. It's an excellent resource. As a previous VBS leader I can really appreciate the advance instructions and step-by-step guides for the volunteers.
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| I did manage to snap a few of her before my camera died. LOL |
Our review package also included Egglo Treasuers Scripture Scrolls and Egglo Bible Verse Scroll Stickers along with the Adventure Book and Glow in the Dark Easter Eggs. In advance, I made a trip to our local dollar store. I found some small gifts to add to the eggs. (I spent about $5, so it was just a little investment.) We're not big on candy in this house, so I included one piece of chocolate for each child along with three jelly beans in each egg that did not have a different gift in it. I did a compass and headphones for each child. They were easy to connect with the love of Jesus and fit well in the theme. I also got a package of regular plastic eggs to add in with the glowing ones. This particular pack had one golden egg to which I added four quarters along with the Scripture Scroll and Scroll Sticker for the lucky one who found it. In our case it was the youngest one. She was thrilled!
Once it was dark outside, and after we got Harmony back in the house, the kids went upstairs while I hid the eggs. They came down and searched the family room. I made sure I let them know that there were seven eggs for each of them plus one golden egg. I gave them each a basket and asked them not to open any eggs until everyone had found seven and the golden egg had been found. Of course the oldest was finished first. If I had to do it over again I would have asked her to leave the easier ones for the little kids and search more diligently for the ones that were a little more challenging to find. However, the little kids persisted and with a little "hot and cold" help at the end managed to find all the eggs. They brought their spoils to the coffee table where a very little amount of trading had to take place in order for everyone to get one of each thing that there was just one for each child. Amazingly, each child got one piece of chocolate and the correct set of headphones. The only thing they had to trade was jellybeans for compasses as Avery got all three of those. It went well, and did I already mention that they loved it?
After they were done searching for all their eggs we used the discussion questions from the curriculum that discussed the idea that Jesus is THE LIGHT of the world! Unfortunately, our eggs really didn't glow that much. I have a sneaking suspicion that, despite reading the directions, I did not properly charge them. So, be sure your follow the directions exactly, and if you have to charge them for inside use do so under a light. I placed them in a sunlit room all day, and it wasn't enough. They really need direct light to charge properly. Even though they weren't glowing strong my children loved them, and they did notice the cross on the eggs. Everything about the Glow in the Dark Easter Eggs by Egglo Entertainment is designed to direct you to Jesus, and it does just that. My children have already requested to do this again. Looks like we may have a new tradition for our family.
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