Everyone loves the Easter festive holiday with the chocolate eggs and hot cross buns.

Easter egg hunting is what my children love the most and now that we live in an apartment we aren’t able to have an Outdoor Easter egg hunt so I make a luck dip for my children in the shape of an Easter hen.

I make a big Paper Mache’ hen and paint her in autumn colors. She sits on a nest with eggs underneath her.

Through out the holiday the children can find eggs hidden underneath the hen and inside the body wings head and beak of our Easter hen.

How to make an Easter Hen

Step1.
First of all I collect about 5 broadsheets (Newspapers). You’ll need about 12 sheets of newspaper per pattern.

Step2
Draw the hens body, wing head and beak patterns, two body shapes 6 thicknesses each, the hen has to be strong enough to hold itself up and chocolate eggs inside.

Step 3
Staple the edges together leaving enough of a gap to allow stuffing the openings at the sides for wing attachments and attachment of the head.

Step 4
Paint the hen and when she is dry.

Step 5
Stuff her with chocolates and shredded paper. She is just like a lucky dip. If you only use little chocolates, more fun is had finding them than if you fill her with great eggs and chocolate rabbits.

Step6
Staple the beak to the head and then the head to the body and the wings to the body and sit the hen in a great round nest.

Step7
For the nest you can cover a swimming ring with paper and then raffia or straw or more shredded paper.
Your Easter Hen filled with eggs sits on a nest of shredded paper and eggs. She is easy to make and the kids get as much enjoyment out of lucky dipping for eggs as they would if we were searching the garden for eggs.
Children can more easily understand that eggs come from hens, than attempting to explain how the Easter rabbit leaves eggs in the grass.

Easter is about rebirth as it is a spring rite, and the return of the suns energy to promote growth. The Romans believed that “All life comes from an egg.” and considered eggs to be “the seed of life”.

Our Easter morning begins with an egg dish with the eggs each child has blown, as Blowing eggs is another activity my children love at Easter time.An omelet is a good idea as sometimes the eggs don’t come out whole.

How To Blow Eggs.

Make a small hole in each end of an egg and purse the lips to one end and blow through the hole.The egg will be forced out of it’s shell leaving an empty whole egg.

The shells are creatively colored, either with onion skins or beetroot or powdered dyes.Making a picture on the eggs with wax and then immersing them in the dye is an imaginative way to color the eggs. Stencils and stickers are a good way to decorate egg shells, drawing on the egg with textas and applying Shrinkies, is fun too albeit quick and all the coloring is done for you.

Lunch always has an egg dish, hard boiled eggs with festive decorations on make for an interesting side dish.

• Place the eggs in boiling water and after 2 minutes, lift them out and crack the shells with the back of a spoon all over. Then place a color into the water, onion peels for red or brown, or turmeric for yellow.
• After the 7 minutes remove from the water and place in cold water.
• Once the shell is removed, a lovely lacy webbing is dyed into the white of the hard boiled egg.
• These can be sliced in half lengthways and filled with a mixture of egg yolk mayonnaise and curry spices and mustard piped decoratively back into the egg white shells.

Making Easter Baskets

A basket made from a PET bottle is a way of recycling the plastic.

• Cut about a third of the way from the bottom and all the way around to remove the lid.
• Then cut another strip this time from the widest part of the bottle about 2inches wide this is the handle.
• Staple the handle to the inside of the basket so it doesn’t catch on clothes when carried.
• Decorate the handle with lace and glue lace or bunny print fabric around the outside of the rim of the basket.
• Fill with coconut ice or brightly colored Easter eggs or home made cookies.

This is a terrific craft for youngsters and it is a whole story, making the baskets and then the goodies to place inside them, something girl guides might make over a few weeks leading up to Easter, or a class activity for sharing.

We just love collecting the craft materials and decorations leading up to Easter holiday time.

Easter Hats

Our Easter hats are secretly made, leading up to the holiday, and worn on Easter morning. This is not a serious activity and the winning hat is the one that is the most imaginative or receives the most laughter.

Chicken cups

These are those noisy strings attached to the bottom of a cup with wet sponge. When pulled make a chicken noise.

Bunny Feet

Ever made a stencil of bunny feet and ‘painted’ Bunny feet all over the house or road? Inside use talcum powder as it can be vacuumed up, outside flour is cheap and environmentally friendly and fluffy just like a bunny.

Hot cross buns with the children

Who can resist hot cross buns? Lovely warm yeasty festive buns for Easter, served with butter. These can be made ahead of time and frozen then toasted on Easter morning.

Shortbread bunnies and egg shapes

Shortbread bunnies are another Easter treat that the whole family can enjoy making. Preparing shortbread mix together and stamping out bunny shapes or oval shapes is fun and then applying icing bows to the bunny’s or spots and squiggles in different colors to the finished cookie when they are cold. Colored and flavored white chocolate is what my children love to use for decorating cookies at Easter.

Easter Eggs

We make our own eggs and decorate them with white chocolate which is messy fun in the kitchen and they experiment with fillings, so much chocolate, and so many flavors. Making our own eggs is sticky and messy but fun.

Easter is only once a year and for us it is a great festive party.

CLICK HERE If  you need help with your Easter craft ideas and activities.