Prepare Your Own Sensory Smart Holy Week Eggs

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Our DIY Holy Week Eggs

When reviewing Egglo Entertainment products recently, I decided to create Holy Week Eggs.  These are along the same lines as the typical DIY Resurrection Eggs that you can find all over the Web and read about in the picture book Benjamin's Box: The Story of the Resurrection Eggs.  However, the DIY Holy Week Eggs do not include an empty egg for the risen Jesus since they only carry the story through the end of Holy Week.  Plus, they are more closely aligned to the Catholic Holy Week readings.

Since I prefer to tweak wheels rather than to reinvent them. I searched online for ideas and found a wonderful list at The Masked Mommy.  Using it, I created our Holy Week eggs.

Ideas for Making Your Own DIY Eggs

Inside our eggs are:

• a "palm branch", which is a leaf cut off one of our plants and then snipped with scissors into shape that helps us recall Palm Sunday
• a small bit of soap to remind us of Holy Thursday and when Jesus washes the feet of the disciple
• a small piece of bread to help us recall the last supper
• two small fake flowers that I cut off a decoration that are to remind us of when Jesus went to the garden to pray and asked his apostles to stay awake with him
• ten dimes, because 30 was a bit too many for the egg and I figure 10 can still represent the 30 pieces of silver that Judas betrayed Jesus for
• a bit of yarn to remind us of when Jesus was bound and arrested, as well as when he was whipped.
• a crown of thorns that I made from a semi-flexible cutting of a thorny-type plant outside to for obvious reasons
• a nail to remind us of when they nailed Jesus to the cross.
• a crucifix from a broken rosary for obvious reasons
• a piece of sponge soaked with vinegar to remind us of when they tried to offer Jesus a drink
• a bit of a white rag and some oregano to remind us of when Jesus' body was prepared for burial
• a piece of gravel to remind us of the stone rolled in front of Jesus' tomb

Introducing Holy Week Eggs

To use the eggs, I simply hid our Holy Week Egglo Eggs in the dark and had the children search for them.  While doing so, we talked about how the eggs glowed, just like God brings light to our lives.

Our Box After Two Eggs Were Hidden

Then, I gathered the children in a circle and used "I wonder" statements as they opened the eggs in order to guide them to share their ideas about why I might have selected each object.

Discovering the Objects Inside the Eggs

Finally, I ordered the eggs and told the children the Easter Story, handing around each related object as I did.

Telling the Holy Week Story

 After this , the kids then re-hid the eggs, had me find them and retold me the story.

How DIY Holy Week Eggs Are Sensory Smart

I loved using our DIY Holy Week eggs with my children to re-introduce and help the children retell the Easter story and plan to do so again during Holy Week.  They offer such awesome sensory input while focusing us on faith.

How?

What's inside?

• Auditory: The story telling, of course, provided auditory input, as does shaking the eggs trying to guess what is inside them. 

•  Gustatory:  The children asked to taste a bit of the bread.  

Smells good.

• Olfactory:  The "palm leaf", vinegar-soaked sponge and spiced cloth all offered smelling sensations.

Hiding eggs high and low, under and inside objects, etc. encourages lots of movement.

•  Proprioceptive/Vestibular: The egg-hunting (and subsequent hiding, re-hunting, re-hiding, etc.) provides a variety of movement and heavy work opportunities.  

• Tactile: As the children open the eggs and handle each of the small items inside them they utilize fine motor skills and touch different textures. 

 

The objects provide both tactile and visual stimulation.

• Visual:  Spying the glow-in-the-dark Egglo eggs is both fun and visually stimulating.  However, if you cannot get ahold of glow-in-the-dark eggs before Holy Week, no problem.  Regular ones can work, too.  Just looking at the details of the small objects can offer visual interest.

What DIY projects and traditions help the young children in your life to understand and grow in faith?  Feel free to share about them here in a comment or on our Training Happy Hearts Facebook page.  If you leave a link to an idea, I will pin it on the Training Happy Hearts: A Call to Faith Formation in Young Children Pinterest board.  Have a blessed and meaningful remainder to your Lenten season.