Painted Eggs

Easter weekend I had the opportunity to share with my students about Easter. 

We of course talked about and watched a short video in Chinese on what Easter is all about, Jesus.

I can't really go into so much detail about that here. We then painted eggs! I saw a post on a relatives Facebook wall that asked the question of basically, "Why do Christians paint eggs?" The question was asked, because painting eggs is a pagan tradition and practice. Historically, eggs resembled fertility and were painted to represent spring and new life. At some point in Christendom, Christians started painting eggs red to tell the story of Jesus. The red was to represent Christ's blood shed for our sins on the cross and the cracked open egg resembled the empty tomb upon Jesus' resurrection. Actually, if you want to read some cool stories on the whole egg painting tradition read here. I'd like to tell you all the stories here but that would be plagiarizing. :)  

And as a side note on the topic of "why do Christians do pagan things" (in a sort of response to my relative) in Asia & many places, painting eggs & egg hunts and including Santa & gifts in Christmas activities, opens the door for the G*spel and deeper conversations. 

Regardless of it's pagan roots or disputed Christian roots, painting eggs, for our generation & many Christian families, has become one of the ways we celebrate Christ's resurrection and get excited for Easter. And I know my kids sure loved it! 

But on to what this post is really about, painting eggs with my students! They had tons of fun and I did, too!  I love the break in the routine to do creative, fun, hands on activities. When parents, especially Chinese or Korean parents, are paying you to teach their children, do fun, hands on activities, isn't viewed as learning or worth their money. But the excuse of a holiday, always allows for the fun stuff!

We used water colors! Which was actually so much fun and I think I prefer over egg dying. The kids get way more involved when they can paint!

We also used some glitter wax crayons, which would have been a nice touch, but we had some crazies in our bunch and the wax didn't dry but kept rubbing off.

Love this egg!

Ya. This was the end result after one of my students, Simon, used these. He was making a mess the entire time. It drove me crazy.

He would paint his egg and then dip it in the water to wash off the paint and say "Again, again!" See all that dirty water on the table, ya, Simon.

Simon's egg. Glitter wax crayon fail. Never again.

There's Simon in the background. :)

I loved these sweet pictures. It's just cool to see things in the eyes and through the drawing hand of children.

Jesus on the boat with the disciples. :) Cute.

Did you paint eggs around Easter?