We received a package from Egglo Entertainment to review! We reviewed their Easter products last year as well. This year they sent us Egglo Glow in the Dark Easter Eggs, The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure book, Egglo Treasures Scripture Scrolls and Egglo Bible Verse Stickers, as well as the The Egglo Glow in the Dark Egg Hunt Event Curriculum, which is a curriculum download. We really like these unique eggs, and actually, the eggs we received last year stayed out all year and were used for a handful of different activities, though most of them were not Easter related.
The Egglo eggs actually glow in the dark! If you plan on using them for a nighttime egg hunt, I absolutely suggest charging them for a couple hours, either by leaving them in direct sunlight or under a bright light. We usually just leave them in a bowl in front of the window, so they are always ready to play with! If you don't charge them, chances are low that their glow will be bright enough for an Easter hunt. They do glow faintly, regardless of being charged or not.
As a side note, definitely save the box the eggs come in! Last year we recycled it, but I wish we had kept it so we could easily pack them up and store them with the rest of our Easter decorations. This is how we ended up keeping them out all year long.
While we are not devout followers of Christ, we do respect those who believe in Jesus and learn about the different meanings behind the holidays. This way, when my children are playing with their cousins who attend church, they can talk about the same topics and know what the different stories of Easter are. We teach them about rebirth, why eggs are an important symbol and about the balance of nature.
Bean really likes the Egglo Adventure book, which is actually decently long. I read on another review that their family and church group found the story to be too long, but we actually enjoyed that it was long. It's almost 40 pages, and at least half of those pages have a full written page. The pictures are either full page or half page. The illustrations are really bright and colorful and the story is engaging. Bean especially enjoys that the children in the story go back in time to explore Ancient Egypt and go on a great journey to learn more about Easter.
The curriculum guide is not needed if you are planning to create your own activities, however if you plan on using these products for a Church group, I would definitely recommend it. It's a great resource that has many ideas and activities. The guide also has many printables that can be used for various activities. There are scroll cut-outs, coloring pages, colored egg cut-outs (we used them for a matching game last year) and small posters (we used them to glue to the front of folders for the kids to collect their papers in). The curriculum guide is worth it just for the printables, because you can use them every Easter and for multiple events. They would be wonderful to bring along to a church event and hand out to the younger kids.
The eggs look really neat when they are charged properly! We mainly use them indoors, so it's essential to make sure they are fully charged so they can be easily seen.
We have found many ways to use our Egglo eggs, from games to learning activities. They are great for nighttime hide-and-seek games, scavenger hunts, arts and crafts (simply dip the eggs in paint and use them as stamps, trace around them to design your own eggs, or create garlands with them - we tied a ribbon inside the egg and closed them then hung them up on the wall, which makes them glow at night!), and many learning activities.
Last year we focused on Easter themed sensory bins, but this year we wanted to create more hands-on learning activities. My kids are a bit beyond color matching activities, but since I have been watching my 1 1/2 year old nephew on weekdays, I created the activity for him.
I used the egg as a stencil to create an egg shape on some pieces of scrap felt. I used three bright spring colors in two shades. Munchkin ended up choosing green, pink and purple.
I traced the egg using a disappearing ink pen, so the ink will fade.
When all the eggs were cut out I let baby Z match the shades.
Once he was familiar with the colors I cut the eggs in half, either zig-zags or a curvy line. This made them them into a slightly more difficult game.
Baby Z wasn't familiar with activities like this before coming to stay with us, so we have been creating lots of opportunities to work on his color recognition, matching and sorting, and fine motor skills. These eggs, even just playing with them, popping them open and then trying to put them back together, is a great way to exercise fingers. He also has several motor problems, so any chance to work on them is amazing for him.
I put one half of each of the eggs inside the eggs. Since he's new to this, we started off with three eggs at a time.
He'd open the eggs and then try to find the matching pieces.
Munchkin, of course, had to play too, since he loves puzzles. But instead of putting them in a whole egg, he just hid a piece under half an egg. You can barely tell what color felt is inside.
He played it like a matching game, so he could only make a match if he lifted up the correct eggs.
The scrolls are pretty durable, however if you are a curious 3 year old boy, you may accidentally pull the paper out (he was trying to see how it was attached). A thin paint brush with a little craft glue will fix that problem. Each scroll has a scripture written on it. They are based on a specific scripture, but you can find the one they based it off of really easily. Older children can use their Bible to match the scriptures and compare them. When we go on scavenger hunts, we put one scroll in each egg. When children find them, they usually stop to open and read them. We typically don't fill the eggs with the scripture stickers... because they are bound to end up on something they're not supposed to. We usually add in a sticker to each folder we create for the church group. The kids can choose how to use them.
On the first day we filled the eggs with a small planet Earth, glow in the dark beads, a mini flashlight, a pocket watch, black felt, water (the egg was taped), and dirt.
On the second day we filled the eggs with rolled up pieces of felt. When they were used on our felt board, they were layers for the atmosphere around our felt planet Earth. We added a layer for space and the ozone layer to make it seven.
On the third day we filled the eggs with soil, dirt, rocks, leaves, bark, sticks and flowers.
On the fourth day we filled the eggs with the planets from our Safari Ltd Solar System, but we excluded the Moon and Earth and kept those on the side.
On the fifth day we created two bins, one after the other. The first contained sea creatures and the second contained birds. Most fit in the eggs, but some were too big. We made it work though. We used creatures from our Safari Ltd ocean toob, coral reef toob and backyard birds toob. They were perfect for this activity!
On the sixth day we filled the eggs with animals first and then people figures. These were randomly chosen from our collection of Safari Ltd animals and people figures.
We love that people are diverse and come from all walks of life. :) Unfortunately I couldn't get a clear picture of the kids playing, but they loved this activity!
On the seventh day the bin was empty and they were actually pretty disappointed, but I told them that on the seventh day God took a rest. Bean had some questions and I did my best to answer them. Luckily I was raised Christian/Catholic, so most I already knew. She concluded that either it was a marvelous feat or impossible.
Our general opinion of Egglo eggs is that they are unique because they glow in the dark, they feature a cross, which most eggs don't, and they are quite sturdy (like I said, our set has been used all year long and none of them broke, which happens very frequently with regular Easter eggs). On the downside, you are paying much more for a set of 12 eggs, when you can get 48 regular eggs at your local Target for $2. But, if what you are looking for are glow in the dark eggs, then this is a pretty fair price range. We have only used them for nighttime eggs hunts a couple times, but my kids personally prefer daytime egg hunts with brightly colored eggs.
Prices:
Egglo Glow in the Dark Easter Eggs: regular price $ 11.99, currently on sale for $ 9.99
Curriculum Download: regular price $ 14.99, currently on sale for $ 9.99
Adventure Book: regular price $ 12.99, currently on sale for $ 9.99
Egglo Treasures Scripture Scrolls $ 4.50
Bible Verse Scroll Stickers $ 3.29
Places to find Egglo Entertainment:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EggloEggs
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EggloEggs
Instagram: http://instagram.com/eggloeggs
Google +: plus.google.com/113761975581466698158
Tumblr: http://egglo.tumblr.com
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