Easter Week

This week we were getting ready for and celebrating Easter.

On Monday, I read the children a story called "Easteria - A Greek Easter Legend" from Spring Tales by Suzanne Down about the origins of the Easter bunny.  After I read the story, we blew out some eggs.  Grant was really into this for the first two eggs and then he got bored and wondered what else we were going to be doing.  Julia just kept climbing up on the table trying to stick her hand in all the gooey eggs. 

We also got in a little math review using the wooden dice that Cory and Grant made which have the numbers, in Arabic and Roman Numerals, and the four processes on them. He would roll three dice, two with numbers and one with the process and then he would have to come up with the answer.

 
The girls also enjoyed a tea party.

On Tuesday, I read them another story about the Easter bunny from the Little Acorn Learning April 2009 Monthly Guide using props for all the characters.  There was quite a long list of them.  Four children, a robin, a thrush, a wolf, a bear, a squirrel, a bunny and the Spring Maiden.  Julia made it difficult to tell the story as she was trying to steal all of my characters, and when I wouldn't let her have them she proceeded to cry (very loudly).  Not exactly the mood I was looking for.  Afterward, Grant and Johanna painted some eggs using coffee filters cut in the shape of eggs and food coloring. 

On Wednesday, I read them this book about the first Easter and why we celebrate it.  It was a good book, covering the why's, but not so much of the details, of Jesus' death.  It had some beautiful illustrations.

After I read the book, we painted our blown eggs.  We put skewers through the holes so we could paint them easily, and then stuck them in styrofoam to dry.  It worked really well and prevented our hands from getting covered in paint, well sort of.  Grant painted two eggs silver.  I asked him if he wanted to paint some dots, wavy lines, or anything else.  He said, "No way.  They look like money."