Easter egg hunt

Happy Easter! Our village is enjoying its Holy Week as the calender for both churches (Moravian and Russian Orthodox) have Easter on April 4. There are church services each night, starting at 7 and going quite late. On Saturday evening, the Russian Orthodox Church will start its service at 11 PM and end around 5 AM.

We celebrated Easter here at school with an Easter egg hunt. Our K-2 students had their hunt outside. The 3-6 graders had their hunt inside. It was actually the teacher's choice. All the classes had lots of fun. We dyed eggs in the morning. Friends had sent eight egg kits, so we had plenty of dye for the students. The aroma of egg was in the air all day! The kids were so excited! Since it was April 1, Tammy played a trick on her students. She sent them out of the room to the computer lab while she hid the eggs. But instead of hiding them in her room, she gave the eggs to another teacher so he could hide them in his room. When the eggs were hidden, she took the kids back to her room and let them look for eggs. After a few minutes of searching, no one had found any eggs. She then said,"April Fools" and laughed. After she explained what she had done, she then took them to Paul's room. The kids were really excited now. (And, they did enjoy the joke!)

My students hid the eggs for the K-2 classes. We started with the 1-2 graders. We hid the eggs, candy, and gum; then, we waited for the kids. We waited and waited and waited. Finally, the preschoolers came out. Oh no. . . what would we do? Fortunately, most of them didn't notice a thing and kept right on walking. Only one little boy noticed and he just stared and stared. We were able to get him on his way, and I started back towards the school when the kids started yelling again. Oh no, the dogs. . . the dogs must have smelled the eggs. There were three puppies all excited and now I was chasing them away. Finally, the 1-2 graders appeared and were ready! We lined them up and explained the rules. Since most speak only Yup'ik, they didn't understand much except GO! And, they were off! When the 1-2 graders were done, we brought out the kindergarteners, lined them up, and they were off!

Each time someone found something, it was brought to the teacher and she put it in a large bag. No one was allowed to keep what they found. Instead, everyone put the treats in a bag to be shared equally. We did have two eggs marked with stickers. These special eggs were rewarded with a soda. The kids were so fun to watch. My high school kids who hid the eggs even helped with suggestions on where the eggs might be found, so everyone found something!

The other grades 3-6 held their Easter eggs hunt indoors. These hunts were in the classroom, another teacher's room, or our lobby. These students, however, were not required to share their spoils with their classmates. They could keep what they found. Once again, the prize for the person finding the special egg was a soda. Everyone, no matter what their age, enjoyed the thrill of the hunt!