My best wishes are for you

to enjoy your Easter Celebrations

with your family,  with the angels,

and with eggs full of the joys in life.

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We celebrate this rebirth with the angels

just as we do the original birth of Christ

With music and a joyful heart

For all he has done for us.

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There are many ways folks celebrate Easter.

One of my favorite is watching the joy of discovery

of a child as they seek to find what is filling the

empty space of a freshly found Easter egg.

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Personally, there are very few sugary treats found inside the eggs I fill.  I much prefer to fill them with things that will make an impression, for the hunt, for Easter, and long after the festivities over.  A few of my favorites:

Easter Hunt – Objects that can be included in some sort of craft.  Fill the eggs and number from 1 – 8 (or however many eggs need to be filled for the craft).  Children must continue to look for eggs until they have one of each number, then sit down to open them together with you.    So this works well for one child, or many.  Craft projects may include:

• beads and string for jewelry (foam beads or smaller beads…)
• different colors of playdough or clay
• foam pieces to make a picture, etc.
• pieces of a puzzle – spread out between all the eggs in the batch
• picture clues to favorite Easter & springtime songs to sing, or rhymes with finger plays
• a short inspirational thought or verse from the bible

Easter Morning – Have large plastic (washed) eggs filled with breakfast items;  small muffins, dry cereal, small fruits like grapes, cherries, or strawberries.  Hide them, along with colorful boiled eggs, for the children to find on Easter morning.  My son LOVED his birthday breakfasts that he had to find !

Easter Afternoon –  Use the instructions for Resurrection Eggs, which help solidify some of the facts of the story of why we really celebrate Easter.  Please follow the link, as they explain it much better than I.

After Easter – Make TIMBRE EGGS.             This just means filling the plastic eggs with various objects to make different sounds.  I prefer to use colorful electrical tape to keep the eggs closed, and it is nice that it comes in several colors now.    For younger children, use edible items (just in case they come open). For fillings, you may use:

Small items for a light sound – rice, cous cous, rice noodles, small cereal:   non-edible – small beads, paper clips,

Medium item for great shaker sound – unpopped popcorn, dry beans, coffee beans, jelly beans:   non-edible –  plastic beads, jingle bells, small lego piece(s),

Large items for a clunky sound – pecan, or small nut:   non-edible – wooded spool, marble, rock

For non-food items try to include at least one egg filled with each of the following materials; metal, wood, plastic, glass (like a marble) and any other that you think will make a different sound.

I would LOVE to hear more ideas for what you might put in the eggs to make a unique timbre.  PLEASE SHARE in the comments so everyone can enjoy this diversity.

When preparing “timbre eggs”, consider the age of your child to create a set of sounds that will work best with your child.

Babies/Toddlers:  Just have these available to explore with your child frequently.  Listening to these varieties of sound (also called TIMBRE) is excellent for building neural pathways for these sounds – providing them a foundation for understanding the sounds in their environment.  Young children  also like open-able eggs filled with different textures to explore.

Toddler/Preschoolers:  Make two of each kind.  Let the child listen to the sounds and match the ones that are the same.   Younger children should only have a few choices (like 3 sets), whereas preschoolers can handle more sets.  These children are not quite ready to identify the object, but can match them.  Make sure they have a chance to use their new instruments to make a parade around the house or yard sing their favorite songs, or marching to the sound of music.  Have fun!

Older Children: Make a list of the things you have used.  After all have been made, have the children listen to the sound and determine what objects were put in that egg.  This is EXCELLENT for LISTENING DISCRIMINATION.

This is a great project to do WITH the children.  (I don’t suggest including these in the hunt, because they will do whatever they have to to open the egg.)  If you do this WITH them, they see what goes IN the egg already, and can focus their attention on the SOUND instead.

Angel pictures and holiday greeting clip art by GranGran