Teachers Pay Teachers Sale!

One of the most exciting times of the year for me is Teacher Appreciation Week. Spreading the love to teachers everywhere is such an important thing to do, especially in our society where teachers are often not treated like the professionals they are. To me, teaching extends to any person who actively gives the gift of education to others. This includes teachers, parents, tutors, and instructors.

That is why I love the website Teachers Pay Teachers. They offer teacher-made materials to the general public, so that anyone can become an effective educator. Teacher authors have a lot of great products up on the site such as worksheets, entire years worth of lesson plans, games, and even clip art. I highly recommend looking through the site, especially if you are like me and teach your child at home.

Teachers Pay Teachers is having an amazing site-wide sale on May 3rd-4th in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week. In addition, I am having a sale in my store for 20% off all products! Although my store is not very big, I do have some great items and I like to put up a lot of freebies. Go check it out!

Ways to Make Easter Meaningful for Toddlers

If celebrating Easter with Peeps, bunnies, and eggs makes you feel like you are pushing the real meaning of Easter to the back-burner, then I completely understand. I have felt that way since my first son was born.

In order to help myself, and other parents who may feel the same as I do, I have made it a point to discover ways to bring meaning to Easter for toddlers.

Swap the Eggs and Bunnies for Crosses and Lambs

“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’” –John 1:29 (New International Version)

Jesus is the lamb and he died on the cross. These symbols hold high significance in Christianity and can easily be incorporated into Easter.

One thing you can do is make homemade marshmallow rice treats or cookies, and put them in an Easter basket to replace Peeps or other candy. You can easily shape these into crosses with a stencil, or grab a cross cookie cutter, which I have seen carried at Wal-Mart and Target in the Easter sections.

If you like to bake a cake for Easter, consider a cute lamb cake or grabbing a cross cake pan from the Easter aisle.

Associate Jesus with the Cross and the Lamb

It can be a bit hard and confusing to explain to a young toddler the significance of Jesus’s act of sacrifice and resurrection to save all of mankind. However, a great start is to have them associate crosses and lambs with Jesus. In addition, you can mention the love of Jesus. This, in turn, will help them associate Easter with Jesus. Knowing the love of Jesus and that He is associated with the cross is a great foundation for toddlers to understand the meaning of Easter.

For an older toddler, you could also start to introduce that Jesus is the only person to rise from the dead because He is God. This associates Easter with Jesus’s resurrection.

Change Up the Egg Hunt

You definitely do not have to get rid of the Easter bunny and egg hunt. Those memories are just too precious. Instead of nixing it all together, pop some adorable and simple Bible verses into the eggs with the candy. You could also wrap the verses on the outside of the eggs. I have also seen many families use the eggs to represent the new life that is awarded to Christians after the resurrection of Christ. I thought that was a great idea!

Here is a free printable for Super Simple Easter Bible verses.

Download PDF Here: Simple Bible Verses for Easter

Do some Christ-centered Easter Activities

There are so many great free resources for toddler activities online, it is very easy to find some Christ-centered Easter games and projects for kids. Here are some of my favorites from blogs around the web that I am definitely going to do with my boys this Easter:

Printable Resurrection Set -This adorable craft is perfect for toddlers and turns out super cute. The printable is free if you subscribe to the emails from the blog. It’s a great blog, so I don’t mind at all!

Cross Craft Using Left Over Egg Dye -This craft turns out absolutely beautiful and is super simple to make. Get the directions and see pictures of the end result at the link!

Where is Jesus? Magic Watercolor Art -A very neat art project that will amaze your little one! There is a free printable for this project and directions at the link.

Free Coloring Pages -Free coloring pages! On the page, there are many free Easter themed coloring pages. Some of them are the typical eggs and bunnies, but they do have just as many Christ-centered pages.

Cross Fingerprint Craft -This is another cross craft that turn out very beautiful. It is meant to be used with a class, but you can easily turn it into a family craft. You can even carry it to grandma and grandpa’s house to get more fingerprints!

Hopefully, this list gives you some great ideas to make Easter meaningful for toddlers, or even young children. I like to incorporate these ideas into the days leading up to Easter day, to make this day even more meaningful. Even if you are not Christian, I appreciate you reading and keeping an open mind about the true meaning of Easter.

Natural Green Foods

Grapes

These delicious and juicy variety of grapes are perfect for a green snack. They would also be perfect for a lunch side. They are tart and mouthwatering sweet!

Kiwi

Kiwis are super green and super delicious! All you need to do is slice the skin off with a knife and cut into round slices to enjoy.

Granny Smith Apples

These are so easy to spot in the grocery store. Just look for the bright green apples! This variety is very tart, but also sweet. They go perfectly as a snack or paired with lunch. You can slice them and add some peanut butter for a protein packed snack.

Anjou Pears

A very popular variety of pears that can be found in all stores. Pears are actually my favorite fruit! They are soft and so sweet. They are the perfect snack and go perfect with breakfast or lunch.

Green Monster Juice

All of the green colored juice in the store has blue and yellow food coloring. No joke! I actually looked at the labels of all of the green products in the drink aisle at my grocery store. Instead, make your own. If you have a juicer, all you need is 2 granny smith apples, 1 pear, and ½ cup of spinach or kale. Juice these together and you get a delicious juice that kids will actually love! Check out my how-to video on this recipe.

Green Smoothie

These sweet smoothies feel like a treat, but they are actually healthy! The secret to getting the bright green color is to add in at least a ¼ cup of leafy greens, and making sure that the other fruit is a light color. Great options are bananas, pears, skinned apples, and kiwis.

Throw the ingredients into a blender and blend away! Kids will never know there’s a hint of vegetables in there, because it tastes so good and sweet. Yum!

Guacamole

Made with the naturally green colored avocados, this dish is absolutely mouth-watering. I am so in love with guacamole and my kids have always liked it at some point. My toddler is in his picky stage now, but the baby still loves it!

For a bowl of guacamole, start with 2 avocados (diced), 2 Roma tomatoes (diced), ¼ of a white onion (diced), 2 cloves of garlic (minced), and spices. For my spices, I chose salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, and a pinch of chili powder. I love spices, but if you want to keep it simple, just go with salt and pepper. 1 teaspoon of each should do perfect.

 

Next step is to put all of the ingredients together minus the spices.

To smash the guacamole together, you definitely do not need a food processor, just use a fork! It’s easy and doesn’t take any time at all.

Once it’s all smashed, add in the spices.

It’s ready to be enjoyed, and oh man is it delicious!

Green Tortillas

If you are looking for a naturally green food that is outside the realm of fruits and veggies, then a green tortilla is probably going to be the only option. They do come in an all natural form, meaning no added dyes, but they are a bit tricky to find. The ones in the regular grocery store are most likely going to have dyes in them, so make sure to check the ingredients list. I found some all natural spinach tortillas at Trader Joe’s, a health food store. You might be able to find some at Whole Foods as well.

Perfect to serve for lunch or dinner, you can make all different kinds of sandwich wraps with these. I made a yummy chicken, spinach, and avocado wrap. Of coarse you can make it much simpler for a younger child, like a turkey or ham wrap.

Another neat option is to make quesadillas with the tortillas. Just pop some cheese inside the tortilla to start off, and heat up until the cheese it melted. You can always add so much more, like chicken or beef. We love quesadillas in our house! They are fast and easy (my personal favorite combo).

It’s overall pretty tough to find natural green foods in the processed food aisles. I completely understand the need to stay away from artificial food dyes, so that is why I put this list together. Of coarse, there are many more green foods that can be found in the produce aisle. If you want to keep it natural when it comes to the color green, you gotta go to the garden!