Easter Treats: Paper-Bag Treat Bags for Sunday School

Our nearest Dollar Store is actually pretty far away, for a city, and it's down a busy road, but for a while, I kept insisting on going there to pick up themed treat bags for every little holiday. I put together holiday treat bags for my Sunday School kids when I can, but the trek to get them was getting out of hand. Plus, I felt bad handing out clear bags because other kids could see what they got.

I don't remember which holiday it was when I ditched the usual treat bags.  Instead, I turned to a pack of paper lunch sacks I keep on hand for various kids' projects - paper-bag puppets and the like.
I just choose stickers or stamps related to the holiday, and put that and the children's names on the outside, fold the top of the bag over, punch two holes near the fold, and tie a short length of ribbon in a square knot to close the bags. Target always has cute seasonal ribbon in their dollar section, and each length of ribbon can tie two bags.

These treat bags are simple, and don't require running out to the store all the time!

I used the time I would have spent running across the city to the dollar store to trek across the city the OTHER way, to the Ukrainian store, and was able to get the kids cute egg shrink-wraps - some with pretty pysanky designs, and one set with cute baby animals for the youngest kid.

I think the kids made out okay...

The pencils, pencil topper erasers, and food-shaped erasers are all from Target's dollar section.

The egg stickers are from Target, too, and I love that a lot of them look like simple pysanky designs.

The wooden eggs are the kid-friendly pysanky I made earlier this week.

The cross stickers are from the Neumann Shrine gift shop.

Any candy treats were left up to parents, as that's their prerogative this time of year (the kids gave up different treats for Lent), especially since the treat bags were handed out after liturgy last night, when most people have not broken their fast yet. No need to tease the kids with a treat they can't have yet.

 The intent of these bags was just to share a small nod to our religious and cultural traditions for this holiday. I had so much fun making the kids pysanky that they don't have to worry about breaking.

I was also THRILLED to find this fantastic printable over at Many Mercies

These cards are so beautiful, and I love that they not only use our traditional Easter greeting - Christ is Risen! - but also include the translations. I think it's nice for the little kids to see our greeting translated into the other languages we use at church, even if they can't read the alphabets yet. 

I think it would be fun to print these little cards out on magnets so they could be hung up, and might do that next year.