What’s it like to prepare for Easter with your kids?
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It’s Easter time here in Germany, which arrived with a stretch of warm spring days, and we’re preparing for this time with crafts, songs, and trips into nature. Lyons Cub had a kindergarten friend over this weekend, and together, they colored striped Easter eggs with our egg-coloring machine that plays Christmas songs and created transparent paper Easter bunny sun catchers to hang into their windows.
Lyons Cub sang “Now Easter Time is Coming” — “Jetzt kommt die Osterzeit” by Rolf Zuckowski for us.
After having done crafts for about two to three hours, which included freeing plastic dinosaurs out of their eggs, we ventured out into nature and visited a secret brook with an unofficial Waldorf playground — some parents had put up a sun sail as well as benches and swings. When going there, it’s wise to wear rubber boots and bring a change of clothes, because the kids are sure to get wet 😉
The place is usually hidden away behind greenery, and we found it by coincidence when hiking last year. At this time of the year, the trees are not in their full bloom yet, so the place is quite visible and frequented by kids. People have knitted some warm coats around tree stems, children have hung up Easter eggs, dream catchers made of chestnuts and wool are dangling in the trees — it’s a mystical place!
The Waldorf kids have left some fishing nets, and there are tiny shrimp in the brook that the children caught, put into cans that were lying around there, and then released. The water was flowing quite fast, although some other children had built a dam out of twigs and branches, and Lyons Cub let his Playmobil boat with motor go downstream:
After all the rain in the recent days, the meadows were quite muddy, and the adults had to walk around carefully to avoid the biggest messes. The kids didn’t care, of course!
Under a heavy tile, Lyons Cub found dozens of leeches:
It takes about an hour to go hiking uphill, following a narrow path. Occasionally, one meets riders on horseback or people on bicycles.
Old-fashioned, timber-framed Berg houses with slate façades greeted us, and hidden paths led us through forests, where we heard lots of birds, such as woodpeckers:
The way back leads past wide, endless fields with an occasional bird of prey drawing smooth circles above our heads. A most peaceful landscape indeed.
The first messengers of spring were blooming all around our hiking path:
And when we returned, we were rewarded with a most beautiful sunset, just like the other ones we typically observe here, when the red sun sets behind the rolling hills and the village lies peaceful behind a row of hawthorn:
