What Does the Easter Bunny Have to Do With Easter? Easter Bunny Origins Explained + Activities

Who came up with the idea of the Easter Bunny?

According to Time, the concept of the Easter bunny stems from pagan rituals around the vernal equinox (the first day of spring). The pagan goddess of fertility, Eostre, was also symbolized by a hare and eggs. It’s believed that when missionaries spread Christianity throughout Europe, they combined the pagan spring rituals with Easter and resurrection celebrations to make the transition from paganism to Christianity easier for new converts.
In terms of the Easter Bunny’s specific ties to the Christian holiday, German writings from the 1600s were reportedly among the first to mention an Easter hare. The Easter hare (called “Oschter Haws” in German) was said to have left colorful eggs for good children around Easter. Children would sometimes prepare “nests” for the eggs and leave carrots for the hare. German immigrants are believed to have brought the Easter Bunny tradition to the United States around the 1700s.

                                                                                                         Further reading

Easter Vocabulary

Listen and repeat.

Easter is coming

Easter Vocabulary

Easter Vocabulary

Do you celebrate Easter in your culture? Learn about this important holiday that is celebrated by many English speaking people. Click on the audio to hear English vocabulary words related to Easter, such as Easter egg, candy and jellybean. Five different activities give a lot of practice.

Hot Cross Buns Nursery Rhyme with Lyrics

Easter Egg Hunt

Where are the Easter Eggs? Describe the pictures

How many pictures can you remember?
                                                                                                         (Lanternfish)

HOT CROSS BUNS

Hot cross buns
Traditional spiced, sticky glazed fruit buns with pastry crosses. Served as a classic Easter treat, the buns can also be enjoyed at any time of year.

How to Decorate Easter Eggs

The Origins of Easter Celebrations

The Origins of Easter Celebrations

The meaning of the many different customs observed during Easter Sunday have been buried with time. Their origins lie in both pre-Christian religions and Christianity. In one way or another all the customs are a "salute to spring" marking re-birth.

The white Easter lily has come to capture the glory of the holiday. The word "Easter" is named after Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. A festival was held in her honor every year at the vernal equinox.
People celebrate Easter according to their beliefs and their religious denominations. Christians commemorate Good Friday as the day that Jesus Christ died and Easter Sunday as the day that He was resurrected. Protestant settlers brought the custom of a sunrise service, a religious gathering at dawn, to the United States.

Who is the Easter Bunny?

Today on Easter Sunday, many children wake up to find that the Easter Bunny has left them baskets of candy. He has also hidden the eggs that they decorated earlier that week.

Children hunt for the eggs all around the house. Neighborhoods and organizations hold Easter egg hunts, and the child who finds the most eggs wins a prize.

The Easter Bunny is a rabbit-spirit. Long ago, he was called the "Easter Hare", hares and rabbits have frequent multiple births so they became a symbol of fertility. The custom of an Easter egg hunt began because children believed that hares laid eggs in the grass. The Romans believed that "All life comes from an egg." Christians consider eggs to be "the seed of life" and so they are symbolic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Why we dye, or color, and decorate eggs is not certain. In ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Persia eggs were dyed for spring festivals. In medieval Europe, beautifully decorated eggs were given as gifts.
By Mary Bellis