We had the opportunity to review Glow in the Dark Egglo Eggs, The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure book, Egglo Treasures Scripture Scrolls, Egglo Bible Verse Stickers, and The Egglo Glow in the Dark Egglo Event Curriculum by Egglo Entertainment.
WHAT IS IT?:
Egglo Entertainment offers a unique and creative program to help your and your family or church group to celebrate Easter in a meaningful way. The program includes a variety of components to choose from, including:
- Glow in the Dark Egglo Eggs – plastic 2-piece eggs that you “charge” in sunlight or fluorescent light and then use in an Easter egg hunt in the dark as they glow ($9.99 for a box of 12)
The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure book – this tells a unique adventure story that helps kids see how Jesus is the light of the world ($9.99 softcover)
- Egglo Treasures Scripture Scrolls – these cute little plastic trimmed scrolls unroll to reveal a variety of scriptures…perfect for tucking inside the glowing eggs ($4.50 for a bag of 12)
- Egglo Bible Verse Stickers – these stickers contain bible verses, as well, and can either be easily hidden inside the eggs or stuck on the outside of the eggs for decoration ($3.29 for a pack of 12)
- The Egglo Glow in the Dark Event Curriculum – a downloadable 60-page guide that outlines how to host an Easter event that’s centered around the use of the glowing eggs, but also includes a variety of suggested activities, visual aides, printable discussion cards, invitations, decorating ideas, themed snack ideas, coloring activity pages, and both bible verse scroll and cross cut-outs that can be placed inside the eggs ($9.99 for the one-time download that you can use to print from over and over again)
OUR EXPERIENCE:
Although this program is designed to be used as part of a religious celebration of the Easter holiday, my family used it a bit differently. We’re non-denominational Christians and do not celebrate any man-made holidays as religious holidays. Therefore, it actually worked out well for us that we were asked to review these products outside of the Easter season.
The Story
My 10-year old daughter, Haylee, and my 7-year old son, Holden, sat with me on the couch while we began by reading the Egg-cellent Easter Adventure storybook together. Although this fictional adventure refers many times to Easter being a religious holiday, it was easy enough to explain to my children why we don’t celebrate it as such, and that sufficed. I’m in complete agreement with the concepts the program conveys, other than the actual religious celebration of Easter, so I had no problem making this work for us.
I have to say that I really liked this very creative story and the message it conveyed of how the children were led ultimately to the cross of Jesus to discover that He was the real treasure…that His sacrifice was the real gift. I also loved how this discovery was shown to influence the children to improve their behavior and their treatment of one another…enough that their parents noticed the difference in how they interacted with each other. Secretly, I was hoping that as my children (who often bicker with each other on a regular basis) listened to the story, they might be moved to examine their own behavior and be moved to make similar changes. A mom can hope, right?!?
The Curriculum
While we weren’t hosting an event but merely using the program for own own family, I was still happy to have access to the Egglo Glow in the Dark Event Curriculum. Despite not needing the decorating ideas and invitations, the rest of it was still useful to us to use at home. It was filled with wonderful ideas for snacks and activities.
There were so many ideas to choose from in the curriculum guide! We started with one of the snack ideas. We made “torches” out of pretzel rods with large marshmallows on the ends, then dipped them in whipped cream and bright sprinkles to represent a flame. Then we used a set of discussion questions that were in the guide to talk about how Jesus is the light in the world and what that means. We talked about how the world would be a dark place without Him. I suggested that it can be scary to fee l lost in the dark, and how much better you feel when you find your way with the help of a light source…and then we discussed how it’s just that way with Jesus as we try to make our way through this life. Then the kids got to enjoy their snack, which of course they loved!
Next, we went back and reviewed the story we read by using the Q&A sheet from the guide. It had been several days since we’d ready the story together, and I was impressed with how much detail the kids remembered. Clearly, this story had made an impression on them. They even remembered each of the personality problems the characters had exhibited in the story.
There was a neat bible memory verse activity in the guide called Scripture Scramble. It suggested that we put each of the words from John 1:5 onto balloons and have the kids unscramble them to reveal the verse. Instead of using balloons, I put the words on index cards and spread them out on the floor. I had the kids work together to solve the puzzle. They did a great job!
For the Bible Alive activity, we talked about the bible account of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Then we used the Q&A from the guide to see how much the kids remembered about the events. It was a great review for them, and they worked together to answer the questions.
I also printed out a variety of coloring pages from the guide for Haylee to color. They depicted Jesus and characters from the storybook, as well.
Then just before we started the egg hunt, we went over the Egg Hunt Discussion Cards from the guide to prepare our minds for the hunt.
These were the activities we selected, but there are many more options to choose from in the curriculum. There’s sure to be plenty of ideas there for your family or church group to work with in making your event memorable for everyone involved!
The Egg Hunt
The Egglo Treasures Scripture Scrolls were just adorable. Each one was tiny enough to fit inside the eggs and was closed with a tiny rubber band. As soon as Holden saw me stuffing them into the eggs, he started getting excited and trying to read them, but I snatched them away and told him that would be part of the surprise inside the eggs. Since we had enough scrolls to fill the dozen eggs, I decided to let the kids have the Egglo Bible Verse Stickers to use on their own for fun.
I let the eggs sit in a bowl on the dinner table all through dinner time so they’d get really “charged” under the lights. When I took them outside, they were really glowing! I tossed them all over the yard and then had the kids race out to collect them. It was so easy to see them! They had a lot of fun, and Holden found almost as many as Haylee did, so she congratulated him on the way back inside. That was nice to see from these two kids who never seem to get along!
Then they rushed inside and sat down to take turns reading the scriptures from the scrolls inside their eggs. It was such a nice way to share scripture with each other, and the novelty of doing it as part of an egg hunt gave it an extra dose of excitement!
Conclusion
Even though, we don’t celebrate Easter as a religious holiday, we were able to make this whole program work well for our family. It created a fun atmosphere that encouraged the kids to talk about the bible and all that Jesus has done for us. It made the actual egg hunt just a fun way to wrap up a sort of family bible study, rather than the egg hunt itself being the focus of what we did. The kids willingly participated in all of the activities, and we really, really enjoyed the storybook and the lessons it demonstrated to the kids about how to treat each other more kindly and respectfully. I really hope those lessons stick and that they will remember that Jesus really is the light in their world.
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