Amidst all of the chocolate and marshmallows, bunnies and chicks, flowers and hats, egg hunts and pretty pastel shades, there is of course, a real story that needs to be CELEBRATED. Easter isn’t as easy to relate to as Christmas and sometimes we stumble as we try to explain it to our children, but if its real message has ever impacted your life you will know that it’s the most important thing we will ever teach them.
I have been looking for some creative ways to tell the story and help young children to relate to it at their own level and I have chosen 5 wonderful ideas from some talented people to share. I am hoping that we will begin to use at least some of these ideas as we form our own traditions as a family.
1. Make an Easter garden
Impress Your Kids shows us how to make this beautiful garden scene with a tomb simply carved from a potato (love this!) Visit her original post to see what lovely surprise they leave in the garden for the children to find on Easter morning! For another beautiful garden scene with a real rock that has been carved out, look here.
2. Make some resurrection eggs
In My Spare Time explains clearly how to make these resurrection eggs which tell the whole of the Easter story using Bible references and a symbolic item for each part of the lead up to the crucifixion and Easter day. These can be opened one a day for the 12 days before Easter or during a children’s talk or at family worship. I think my two are a little young to understand all of the elements this year, but I’m wondering about paring it down to just 4 or 5 eggs to incorporate in our Bible reading time.
3. Make some story-telling baskets
I love this idea from Katie Orr about presenting the children with a colour coded basket every morning in the run up to Easter that contains a Bible reading, toys or symbols to represent each part of the story for re-telling and some follow up activities. Such a fun, child-friendly, hands on way to teach the real meaning of the cross.
4. Light some Lenten Lights
This is an idea I have not heard of before, but I love the association with advent and the run up to Christmas. Read Little Llamas to see how they light a candle as they read each part of the story from the Bible, how they are blown out to represent death and relit on Easter morning. Simple yet very effective!
i love the ideas of the garden and the storytelling baskets… i’d not seen those before!
Thanks so much for these wonderful ideas!! I love the garden, we will be making one of those! Thanks so much for visiting my blog and linking to the Ressurrection Eggs, you are awesome! I hope you and your family have a blessed Easter:)
Angie @ http://inmysparetime2.blogspot.com
What a great collection of ideas! Now I am puzzling over which ones to choose, since they are all so appealing!
Hi Anna! Thanks for this – we are already working on our garden as inspired by Ann Voskamp. I found a small bag of air dry clay at the craft shop the other day and made our tomb out of it, but the potato idea is also pretty cute!! Please pop round to Joyful Mama’s Place this week to see how we are making Holy Week meaningful. Blessings to you and yours!
A great collection of Christ-centered activities! I need to check out the cookies! Thanks for including our celebrations in the list.
Have you ever made “Empty Tombs”? That is what we do every year. You take biscuit dough and wrap a marshmallow inside, explaining the story of Christ being laid in the tomb and the stone being rolled in front. You put your biscuits in the oven and you tell of him being there for 3 days. When you get the biscuits out to eat them, the marshmallow is gone. The tomb is empty.