Easter Story

I've been too busy to get last week's preschool stuff up yet, but here it is.  Our theme was the Easter Story.  Some of our kids have never really heard the full Easter story. They are only 3 and 4.  I was a little nervous.  I wanted to do a good job, touch on all the right part, make it something they would remember but not get too gory. 

This book is really great.  I was not expecting too much from it since it was just a little one I ordered through Bee's scholastic book order, but it's really good.  It has all the right parts and a bit of back story.  It's thorough, but not too long.  It's The Miracle of Easter by Jean M. Malone and I see is available here for jut a few bucks.   I also see if you order through scholastic, it comes with Easter silly bands.  Good stuff.

I've been seeing these all over blogs right now.  For good reason.  They are awesome.  Resurrection Eggs are a fantastic to tell and retell the Easter story.  Each egg contains a piece to help you tell story of Eater. I got them at my church book store, but you can get them here or probably your local Christian bookstore.  After reading the above book, I retold the story with the kids help using the pieces.  After snack, I left these out and I could hear several kids telling the story to each other.  It was pretty much precious.  (I'll be using these to review at least one more day- and using the printable pages from 1+1+1=1 to go with them.)

I had the kids bring in signs of spring.  We spent a good amount of time talking about how the buds on the trees and the daffodils remind us that there is new life in the spring.  I also brought in a bulb and seeds and we talked about how they look yucky and dead, but in the spring, they grow and bloom and come to life.  We started to talk about eggs also being a symbol, but the kids had been sitting enough so we moved on.

Here's a fun little counting flower rhyme from The Mailbox Magazine.   I used my glove, but also sent the words and pictures home for my kiddos to sing at home.

[one] little flower(s) looking at the sun

soon bow their heads, one by one.

Then drip drip drop, the rain begins to fall

and [one] little flower(s) once again stand tall.

We also played this flower matching games.  Each fake flower of my beautiful flower arrangement has a tag with a colored shape.  Laying out were matching larger tags. The kids picked a flower, found the match and told us that color and shape it was.  The flowers were from the dollar store.

I found these little fuzzy chicks at a garage sale this past summer and have been saving them just for today.  We passed them out gently and talked about chicks a little.  I tired to bring up the egg thing again, but I feared for the chicks lives if we didn't move on.  We acted out this chick rhyme:

I'm a little chickie, ready to hatch (carefully hide the chick in a loosely folded hand)

pecking at my shell, scratch, scratch, scratch.

When I crack it open, out I'll jump

Fluff my feathers and cheap cheap cheap.

The kids worked on their mother's day gift so there was no Easter related craft today.  This week is jelly bean.  It's a pretty yummy day.