Tag: family

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Every spring, there’s a moment in the checkout line – usually sometime in late February, when the stores have already been wallpapered in pastel for weeks – where I stare at a bag of plastic Easter grass and feel a small, quiet rebellion stirring. SpongeBob gummies made of fake ingredients with a bunny ears hat. Peeps made of who-knows-what.

This is not the Easter I have ever wanted to give my children.

I want the Easter where my kids wake up to baskets that make them feel known and loved, while also not having fake not-real-food ingredients created in a Mad Scientist’s Lab. Where the Resurrection and the over-arching story of beauty and growth and spring is not competing with seventeen pounds of sugar. Where the things I tucked in with care are still being used in June.

That’s a Charlotte Mason Easter basket. And it is absolutely worth thinking about.

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Why This Matters (More Than You Think)

Here’s the thing about Easter baskets – they’re actually a chance to put something living into your child’s hands on the morning that is about living.

Charlotte Mason believed that children were born persons, fully capable of encountering great ideas and beautiful things. She wrote that the mind “lives, grows and is nourished upon ideas only; mere information is to it as a meal of sawdust to the body.” What we choose to give our children – literally, physically put in their hands – is a kind of curriculum. A basket stuffed with throw away plastic and sugar says one thing. A basket with a field guide and a new nature journal says something else entirely. It invites kids to adventures!

Plutarch said it best (and homeschoolers have been quoting this one for centuries, often by accident attributing it to Yeats – but Plutarch said it first – which was news to me!)… “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

Easter morning, of all mornings, is exactly the right time to hand a child something that kindles something.

These aren’t just things in a basket. They’re invitations!

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Living Books and Read-Alouds

Charlotte Mason would never separate a season from its stories. The power of story is something that animates me 100% of the time. Easter is no exception.

For the youngest ones: Beatrix Potter’s tales are perennially perfect for spring – Peter Rabbit belongs in a basket like daffodils belong in a vase. A beautiful treasury edition is the kind of thing that survives years of reading and still looks like a gift. I have my grandmother’s Beatrix Potter set! It is highly treasured.

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For the middle grades: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is the quintessential spring read-aloud. A neglected garden, a grieving house, and the slow miracle of new life – it is practically an extended meditation on resurrection, except it was written before anyone decided literature needed to be obvious about these things. A beautiful illustrated edition tucked into a basket is the kind of gift that becomes a childhood memory.

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For poetry and folklore lovers: The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker is gorgeous – illustrated verses for every flower of the season, the kind of book Charlotte Mason would have handed her students without needing to explain why.

There are also fantastic pop-up books of her flower fairies which are harder to find, but worth it! We have several of them and I loooove them.

“Children must have books, living books; the best are not too good for them.”
~Charlotte Mason

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Nature Study Supplies

Spring is when the whole world is cooperating with your nature study goals. Take advantage of it.

A hand lens or magnifying glass (we love this Melissa and Doug one!) might be the single best tool for any age. It is simple, it works, and it turns every backyard into a discovery. Pair it with a fresh nature journal – blank pages, not lined, because a nature journal is not a worksheet – and you have given a child everything they need for a season of noticing.

A butterfly net and bug observation container are perfect for the backyard naturalist. Catch, observe, release. This is Charlotte Mason nature study in its most essential form.

For the budding birder, a window bird feeder is the gift that keeps teaching. Add a field guide to backyard birds for your region and you have a complete tiny ornithology kit that will entertain and instruct for months.

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The Good and the Beautiful has a wonderful, lushly illustrated Bird Watching Guide, which we adore.

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And seed packets. A few carefully chosen flower or herb seeds, a small terracotta pot, a bit of soil. Tending a plant from seed through the summer is one of the most natural lessons in patience, stewardship, and resurrection-shaped hope that I know of.

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Art and Handicraft Supplies

Handicrafts were central to Charlotte Mason’s vision of whole education – forming the hands alongside the heart and mind.

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Beeswax crayons (look for Stockmar brand, which is widely beloved in CM circles) are rich and creamy and come in lovely tins that feel like a gift before you even open them. Block crayons for young children, sticks for older ones. They are nothing like the waxy, pale versions you grew up with.

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Watercolor paints – a small, quality set – open up nature journaling in a completely new way. Spring flowers, bird sketches, the first green things pushing up in the garden: all of this becomes art with a good brush and transparent color.

For teens, a beginner embroidery or needle felting kit makes a lovely and increasingly rare gift. This is the kind of slow, beautiful work that settles a teenager. (Trust the process on this one. My own teenager, who is interested in art and digital design, has also discovered the deep satisfaction of making something with her hands.)

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I’ve always been partial to anything Klutz brand and they have a kit called the Super Cute Embroidery Kit, which is aptly named!

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Faith-Based Resources

A Charlotte Mason Easter basket, for the Christian family, has Christ at its center – not as an afterthought, but as the whole point.

Resurrection Eggs are a classic for good reason – twelve eggs, each containing a small symbol from the Easter story with accompanying Scripture. This places the Gospel narrative directly in small hands, in a form that is tactile and memorable. Miss Mason believed children should always go to primary sources. This is the primary source. I found out about this tradition when my kids were older and we never did it ourselves, but have had friends that did.

For a more liturgical walk through the week, look for resources that move through Holy Week day by day. The rhythm of Palm Sunday through Easter morning teaches something that no single lesson can.

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And consider a beautifully illustrated children’s Bible. The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones has become beloved in CM homes for its literary quality and its thread-of-redemption framing – the sense that every story is really one story, and it’s the best one. C.S. Lewis would have approved! There is a new gift edition, which I may need to get for our home, even though we have a couple of the “regular” version already.

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For Older Kids and Teens (Because Wonder Has No Age Limit)

Here’s where I push back a little on the idea that teenagers have aged out of a meaningful Easter basket. They haven’t! They may have aged out of finding plastic eggs in the yard, but they have not aged out of getting a basket of surprises that make them feel unique and loved.

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For the teen who loves to read: a beautiful edition of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis is the Easter basket book I’d give to any thoughtful 16-year-old. It is quietly one of the most profound explorations of faith, doubt, and transformation ever written. Not preachy. Just devastating and life-changing in the best possible way. It is great for thoughtful kids wanting to explore and get their own footing in Christian thought, not just plod in your footsteps without thinking. The cover even looks Easter-y in the bright robin’s egg blue!

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For the teen naturalist: a quality sketchbook and a set of fine-liner pens for scientific illustration, paired with a field guide specific to their current obsession (insects, fungi, birds, native plants – pick your kid). Teens who have been nature journaling since childhood often hit a point where they want more precision. Give them the tools.

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I love Eeboo books! They have gorgeous sketch books and equally adorable pencils and colors!

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For the creative teen: a good set of watercolor brush pens or a beginner calligraphy kit are both wonderful. Beautiful, portable, and genuinely skill-building.

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For the teen who is asking hard questions about faith (and good for them!! that means growth!): The Case for Easter by Lee Strobel is short, accessible, and takes the historical evidence seriously.

Or for the literary-minded teenager, Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton – because nothing kindles a thinking faith like Chesterton.

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A Word About Candy (Yes, There Can Be Candy)

I’m not anti-candy. I want to be clear about that. But I am very much against what’s in most of the candy filling the Easter baskets at every big box store right now – and it’s worth talking about for a minute.

Synthetic food dyes – the ones that make candy aggressively neon and jelly beans look like a fever dream – are petroleum-derived chemicals that the research is increasingly not being kind to. A comprehensive review of 27 clinical trials found that 64% showed associations between synthetic dye exposure and behavioral changes in children, with 52% reaching statistical significance. We’re talking about hyperactivity, yes – but also attention, impulse control, and mood. Research points to mechanisms involving disruption of dopamine and serotonin metabolism, leading to neuroinflammation and impaired impulse control. The FDA’s safety thresholds for these dyes, by the way, are based on studies from the 1980s that weren’t designed to measure behavioral effects at all. So there’s that.

This isn’t a fringe concern anymore. It’s peer-reviewed and piling up.

The good news: you don’t have to choose between Easter candy and a chemistry experiment. Natural Candy Store (naturalcandystore.com) is my go-to for dye-free, naturally colored treats that are genuinely festive and actually taste good.

They carry gummies, jelly beans, chocolate eggs, and seasonal options made without artificial colors, flavors, or corn syrup. A small bag of their naturally-dyed jelly beans tucked into a wicker basket is still joyful. It just doesn’t come with a behavioral side effect.

They also have lots of sprinkles!! You can never have too many sprinkles!

I have been a loyal customer of theirs for over a decade and they have saved many a birthday party! They have super kind customer service.

I also always order (early… they sell out!) Cadbury eggs from Amazon that are sent from the UK. The UK version is not synthetic and they taste just the same! Read more about that and see the labels here in another Homeschool with Joy blog.

Your kids can have candy on Easter morning. It can just be candy that isn’t working against the brain you’re so carefully educating the rest of the year.

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Building Your Perfect Charlotte Mason Easter Basket

You don’t need to do everything on this list. That’s not the point.

The point is intention – choosing things that open rather than close, that invite rather than entertain.

I hope I’ve sparked a few ideas!

A few practical notes:

On the basket itself: Real wicker. For the grass, skip the plastic entirely – paper Easter grass has a lovely crinkled texture that photographs beautifully, and woven or raffia-style filler is even better and feels genuinely old-world. A cutting of clover or a handful of whatever is blooming in your yard right now tucked in at the edge makes it look like spring arranged the whole thing. Easter is April 5 this year, which means spring is genuinely here in most of the country – use it.

For very young children (under 5): One or two books, a set of beeswax crayons, seed packets, and maybe a small stuffed bird or bunny. Simple. Sensory. Perfect.

For elementary ages (6-12): A nature journal, a hand lens, one living book at their level, and a small art supply. Add Resurrection Eggs or another faith-based resource if you don’t already have them.

For teens: One book that will challenge them, one art or craft supply that builds a real skill, and something that says I see who you are becoming and I support you. That last one doesn’t have to cost anything.

For “just because” baskets: Everything here works outside of Easter too – a spring birthday, a homeschool encouragement gift, a “we survived the first semester” celebration. Living books and nature tools are always appropriate.

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The Deeper Thing

I’ve been thinking about why this matters so much to me – the intentional basket, the meaningful gift, the thing that will still be on the shelf in July.

It’s because Easter is the story about how death didn’t win. How the ending everyone expected wasn’t the actual ending. How the garden on Sunday morning held an astonishment that changed everything.

And I want my children – on that morning, with those baskets – to hold something that participates in that. Something that says: the world is full of things worth noticing, worth making, worth reading, worth believing.

Not a bag of plastic grass and stale jelly beans.

Something alive.

“The question is not – how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education – but how much does he care?”
~Charlotte Mason

What does your family’s Easter morning look like? Do you do baskets? I’d genuinely love to know what living books or nature tools have made it into your family’s Easter traditions. Tell me in the comments.

And if this post was helpful – save it for later and share it with a fellow homeschool mama. Easter is April 5 this year. We have just enough time.

P.S. A quick note: this post includes Easter eggs. If you’re in the “eggs are pagan” camp, I respect your convictions, and this post is probably not for you – and that’s okay.

For the curious: eggs are actually one of the oldest Christian symbols in existence. It is not about Ishtar. This cartoon says the rest better than I can.

Wes Huff also talks about it. Also Inspiring Philosophy.

Early Mesopotamian Christians dyed eggs red to represent Christ’s blood. Saint Augustine wrote about the resurrection using the image of a chick bursting from an egg. There’s a beautiful Eastern tradition that Mary Magdalene herself brought eggs to the tomb on that first Easter morning. The egg has been part of the Christian Easter story for two thousand years – long before any of us were having this argument on the internet.

I’m not here to fight about it. I’m here to build a great basket. If you don’t do that, peace out. If you do, peace out. Onward.

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