Glow in the Dark Egglo Eggs- Schoolhouse Review

It is always fun to do an Easter egg hunt, but how about finding glow in the dark eggs? Egglo Entertainment, in an effort to increase the focus on Jesus Christ in Easter celebrations, has developed several innovative products. I was privileged to review the Glow in the Dark Egglo Eggs and The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure. I also received The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure (book audio download), Egglo Treasures Scripture Scrolls, and
The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure Program Guide.

The Glow in the Dark Egglo Eggs cost $11.99 per dozen and are perfect for any child who likes to hunt for Easter Eggs. The eggs come in a mix of green, yellow, blue, and pink with half of the eggs being stamped with a large cross and the other half plain to decorate yourself. At the time of this review, the eggs were on sale on the website. Each egg is two halves that snap together lengthwise. They are firm enough to stay connected and easy enough to open that my four year old could open them herself.

 

The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure is a 40 page picture book telling the story of several children who are going to go to an Easter celebration at their church. While they are fighting and running through the house, they discover a glowing Easter Egg  in the attic. It contains two scriptural scrolls (paraphrased from the NIV). The children are transported to Egypt, Easter Island, and someplace with a volcano. At each location they find an egg with two scrolls- one is scriptural and the other a riddle. They use the scriptures to change their behavior and the riddles to lead them to the final prize. Then they return home to go to the Easter egg hunt. The paperback book costs $12.99.

The treasure scrolls come in a package of 12 and are little plastic scrolls with paper writing depicting summaries of 10 different scriptures. They are available for $4.29.  The program guide outlines how to host an Easter party focusing on the Savior for a youth or church group. It includes many ideas including snacks, stories, devotionals, questions and answers, games and printables that are used with the games, crafts, and devotional activities. I read through it and many of the activities were for groups of children. I would have loved to use some of the snack ideas, but due to allergies, we were unable to. We did do some discussions though. While it was not something I used extensively with my family, I can see it being a great help to anyone trying to organize a unique Easter celebration. I love that the snack crafts even had meaning and were not arbitrary. It costs $14.99. The MP3 audiobook of the Egg-cellent Easter Adventure costs $2.99. It is just the Egg-cellent Easter Adventure read aloud in case a parent doesn’t want to read the story aloud.

I really liked the eggs. They charged very well after a few hours. Unfortunately, by the time the children were ready for the hunt, they had not been exposed to light for about an hour and the charge had significantly faded. As a result, I had to charge them under a fluorescent light right before we hunted. This worked out ok. Being that we were in the darkened living room so we could see the eggs, I was a little concerned about safety. The children couldn’t see where they were going. They loved it though and none of them cared that they couldn’t see anything. It would have been fun to do outside, but it was raining when we did our hunt. We put all the scrolls into the eggs and after everyone had found the eggs, we discussed the references and had a good discussion.

I attempted to get some pictures of the eggs after the hunt… I don’t have a super wonderful camera so they are a little blurry.  

I did not read the book to my children. After reading the story myself, I found that there were several aspects that bothered me. The first is how much the children fought with each other. As the story went on, they fought a little less and a little less, but the disrespect and meanness I found distracting from the story. The purpose of the story was to see the children learn about Jesus, but I think it fell slightly short. Jesus was only the focus of the last couple of pages.

 

In addition to not being thrilled with the book, I didn’t really enjoy listening to the audio. I found the storyteller to use a very animated voice in the wrong places. This made listening and following the story difficult. The storyteller did speak in a clear voice though. I imagine that children may enjoy listening, even though it wasn’t read in my favorite style.

 

Because we participated in our Easter Egg hunt for family home evening, my husband, B wanted to add his review for this product.

B review:

I really like the eggs and the scrolls.  The idea of scripture Easter eggs is a good one and my children enjoyed looking for them.  The downside of the glow in the dark feature is they are a a little unsafe and we had to move our “hunt” inside because of the weather.  That was a little bit disappointing.  Hunting Easter eggs in the dark might be a little bit of a safety concern.  the eggs are good quality and the “glow” charges quickly but fades quickly also.  Also night time Easter egg hunts kind of detract from the Easter morning excitement and the need to hurry thru the process (so children can go to bed) was a minor distraction.  Still my children, ages 1 – 12 all enjoyed the hunt and the scripture scrolls afterward. 

 

The scrolls are a neat idea and I enjoyed hearing my children read them in turn.  The scriptures are either paraphrased or taken from the NIV or some other version of the bible.  In our home, we use the KJV of the bible so after each child read a scroll, I read the KJV.  The scriptures do not tell the Easter story chronologically but rather are a collection of scriptures about Christ and being a light, including Matthew 3:16, John 8:12, etc.  I was very pleased with both the quality of the eggs and the scrolls, which are some sort of plastic “paper” well connected to the plastic scrolls.  I personally found the idea of scrolls to be very good and a teaching opportunity about “sticks” being the ancient form of scripture, before printing presses gave way to the bible as a collection of books in one volume as we know them today.  I enjoyed the unrolling of the scrolls as adding an enjoyable element of authenticity to the scriptures.  When I first saw the scrolls in the bag, I thought they would be disposable, but on closer inspection, the scrolls and the eggs would seem to last for a decade or more, making them a nice Easter tradition. 

 

I did not think of it at the time, but it might be nice to have a separate dozen eggs that are numbered and contain scrolls that tell the Easter story chronologically.  These eggs, or maybe just a series of scrolls could be numbered and may come out of an Easter “advent calendar” or something like that.  I would like that.  I have always loved Christmas and have had a far easier time bringing Christ and anticipation into that holiday.  I enjoy these eggs and plan to do them every year with my family. 

 

One of my daughters remarked “I would have more, and none [of the scrolls] the same” when asked about the eggs. 

 

I was disappointed with the book though.  It started with holiday chaos, and had children go on an adventure.  The adventure thru ancient Egypt, caves, snorkeling, a volcano and the northern lights didn’t strike a chord with me.  The story strayed far to often form the Easter story for my taste.  There was a lot of “this is what a scripture means” heavily laden with the authors perspective rather than simply allowing the words of the prophets and apostles to speak for them selves.  At the end the book does say the reason for Easter is to overcome sin and death, but it took a long way to get there.  It seems more of an afterthought then a climax or conclusion.

 

I would recommend the eggs and the scrolls to all Christians or even those curious about the Easter story.  The are very good quality, open easily even for small children and are a nice twist on an Easter tradition that usually has more to do with chocolate than Christ.  I was surprised that Matthew 5:16 was not one of the included scriptures though.

 

I would not recommend the Easter adventure book as it was not the level of quality of the eggs and scrolls, and only told the Easter story in a very round about way. 

Overall, I really liked the eggs. I liked the scrolls too, although I would love to see KJV scrolls available. I think if I were leading a group Easter hunt, I would  really appreciate the program guide and find that it made my job so easier. I look forward to using these eggs again.

 

Many of the crew had other ideas of what to do with the eggs besides just an Easter Egg hunt. Be sure to check out their reviews.