Easter Week

My dad has gifted us a subscription to Focus on Family's Thriving Family magazine.  I like their articles for inspiring godly growth in families.  This year I have decided to use their suggestion for helping kids prepare for Easter.  The article is called "Exploring Easter: Simple ways to celebrate Easter with your kids."  I am chronicling my efforts in this post (as well as summarizing the article's suggestions).  I'll come back and add to it each day until Easter is here.

SUNDAY

• Read John 12:12-13.
• Have your kids make palm branches out of construction paper.
• Decorate the dinner table with branches.
• Place extra branches on the floor as a path from the door to the table to mark a path a honor.
• Before dinner, discuss the meaning of "Hosanna." 
• Ask your kids what they might shout if they saw Jesus coming down the road.

We were out of time to make our own palm branches, so we went out and picked some branches from various trees.  The kids enjoyed waving them and shouting "Hosanna."

Abby said if she saw Jesus coming, she would shout "Hooray Jesus!" 

Isaac said he would ask Jesus to wait and he would go get all his friends to meet Him.

MONDAY

• Bake bread as a family.
• Read John 6:35.
• Discuss why Jesus called himself the Bread of Life.
• Put bread in a basket along with Easter goodies and deliver to someone who may be in need of extra kindness

We bought a box mix of Auntie Annie's Pretzels (mmmm...).

The kids helped make the dough and we had our little "bread of life" discussion.  They needed much assistance in getting the concept.

We wrapped up some bite-sized soft pretzels fresh out of the oven and delivered them to our retired neighbors who have no grandkids to do sweet things for them.

TUESDAY

• Send your children on an Easter scavenger hunt to find items that symbolize parts of the Easter story:
• A rock (the tomb)
• two sticks (the cross)
• something black (sin)
• something red (blood)
• something white (a clean heart)
• something green (growing in Christ)

This one was super fun and required no preparation.

Two sticks representing the cross:

Something black representing sin:

Filling up his basket with something green to represent growing in Christ:

WEDNESDAY

• Read the story found in John 13:1-17 (can find this story in a children's Bible too).
• Fill a bucket with water and grab a towel. 
• Take turns washing each other's feet and praying for each other.

After reading the story of Jesus, the Servant-King, washing his disciples' feet the night before his crucifixion, it was special for us to get to wash our kids' feet and pray for them.

Mommy washed Isaac's feet.

Daddy took care of Abby.

The kids enjoyed the chance to wash Mommy's feet too.

(And things got rather silly when they tried to wash Daddy's feet because his feet are too ticklish).

THURSDAY

• Visit a garden or park.
• Read Luke 22:39-46 (can find this story in a children's Bible too).
• Have your kids talk about what plans they have for tomorrow.  How do they feel about their plans?
• What do they think Jesus may have been thinking/feeling on the night before His crucifixion?
• Pray together.

I liked doing this one at night in our "garden," as the darkness may have reflected more of what Jesus may have experienced.  The downside was that I waited so late that the kids were too punchy for a serious conversation.

FRIDAY

• Place a white carnation in a vase.  Read 1 Peter 1:18-19 (or the story of the crucifixion from a children's Bible).
• Discuss with your children what it meant that Jesus was a "lamb without blemish or defect." 
• After cutting the stem diagonally, add a dozen drops of red food coloring to the water.  Watch what happens over the next few days.  Use the red flower petals as a reminder that Jesus took our sins upon himself when he died on the cross.

Jesus, the "lamb without blemish or defect."

Each kid added some drops of red food coloring to the water, representing their sin. (By the way, that is my dad's hairy arm in the picture below, not mine!  ;) 

Two days later, we look at what happened to our white flowers and talk about how Jesus took our sin upon himself when he died for us.

SATURDAY

• Let your kids help you clean the windows.
• Talk about how much better they can see through them afterward.  
• Read Luke 18:31-34 (or find the story in a children's Bible of when the disciples were sad and confused after Jesus died).  
• Explain that the disciples did not see clearly at first.  They did not understand that Jesus had to die and rise again--until He did!

I left this muddy window up for a few hours before our actual lesson time to get the kids to really wonder what a muddy window had to do with Easter.

They had fun scrubbing it off.

And hosing it down.  And after it was clean, they seemed to get the idea that it wasn't until Jesus' friends saw him alive again after his death that they understood why he had to die.

EASTER SUNDAY

• Read Matthew 27:57-61 (or find the story in a children's Bible of when Jesus' friends discovered his empty tomb...especially the sections of his burial and resurrection that mention his grave clothes or wrappings). 
• Wrap a child volunteer in toilet paper or "grave clothes" and have them break free from the toilet paper.
• Talk about how happy the disciples must have been when they saw that Jesus had conquered death.
• Use a trick candle to show how Jesus, the Light of the World, appeared to be extinguished, but wasn't.  He was dead, but He came back to life!

Wrapping up Isaac in "grave clothes."

He thought it was pretty funny.

In his "tomb."

And he loved breaking free.

We didn't plan ahead to get the trick candle but I think that would be a great visual for the concept of Jesus coming back.  This was a lot of fun.  Looking forward to next year.