Materials
• card stock, ribbon, glue, markers (Sweden)• paper plates, elastic, colored paper and tissue, paper cutouts (England)• wooden sticks and colored yarn (Mexico)• pussy willow branches, decorated blown eggs (Norway)• plain candles, pressed flowers and leaves (Poland)
Instructions
* Easter is usually celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox (first day of Spring). This can fall anywhere between March 22nd and April 25th.1. Tell the children they will be doing Easter crafts from different countries over a period of a week or so.2. Make Easter cards from Sweden. Explain that on Maundy Thursday, Swedish boys and girls push letters or cards under their neighbors' doors. Have children make their own cards to give to friends and relatives. Ask them to try giving some anonymously, as they do in Western Sweden.3. Make Easter bonnets from England. Tell the children that Easter was a popular day for getting married and women always wore newly decorated bonnets to church. Encourage the children to fold a paper plate in half, fasten with elastic, and decorate with colored streamers, cutout rabbits, chicks, lambs, eggs, and so on.4. Make Ojos de Dios ("Eyes of God") from Mexico. Explain that people asked God to look through designs to give the children health and longlife. Show the children how to put two wooden sticks together in a cross shape and wind colored yarn around them in a diamond pattern.5. Make Easter trees from Norway. Well before Easter, put a branch of pussy willow before the buds have burst open into a jug of water. The buds will blossom in the warm atmosphere and make a lovely tree for you to hang decorated eggs on.6. Make flower candles from Poland. Let children stick pressed or paper flowers and leaves or stickers onto candles to make attractive decorations.More to do Group or Circle Time: • Ask the children to find out about different Easter, Passover, and other springtime customs and family traditions and talk about them in circle time.
