Our Easter Activities: Nobody's Dere!!!!

We had a CRAZY couple of weeks with Silas' birthday and family in town and little extras thrown in here and there, SO my Easter unit did not come together the way I had planned. It DID come together though! I ended up teaching Isaac's class during the Easter service and decided we could do some of the activities I had planned on doing with Isaac with all of his friends too! We made our own version of the Resurrection Eggswith a lesson and did a "tomb" craft. Isaac and I reviewed what we had learned Sunday on Monday morning. I know it was after Easter, but, hey, any day is a good day to celebrate the Gospel!


We did a half dozen eggs for our Resurrection Egg activity. I focused mostly on Jesus' death and resurrection instead of the entire Passion Week. I also didn't want to focus on the super gory parts of the crucifixion since they were only two years old and the Resurrection Eggsyou buy have a lot more of those details. 


Here's what we put in our eggs:


1. Twine for the whip
2. Wooden cross (found them at Hobby Lobby)
3. Sponge for when Jesus was thirsty on the cross (I loved this and got the idea from the Women Living Well blog... Isaac can tell you that after Jesus took a drink he said, "It is finished!" and then we talk about how he died for all of our sins)
4. White linen cloth (I cut up one of Isaac's old, stained white t-shirts)
5. Rock from our yard for the stone
6. Empty egg because Jesus wasn't in the tomb on Sunday morning!

After breakfast Monday morning, I hid Isaac's Resurrection Eggs and then we reviewed what was in each one.

We really needed a down day around here, so the boys didn't get out of their pajamas all day! :)

These were the props I used for telling each part of the Easter story and they corresponded with the eggs. I had Isaac help me do the reenactment of the story and he LOVED it. As soon as we got done, he said, "I want to do it again." And of course, I obliged.

From left to right:  Cardboard cross, Jesus puppet, black bowl full of water with yellow sponge, stick, cut up t-shirt, tomb and stone.

I started the story with the stick (laying on the white paper towel) or "whip." I didn't spend a lot of time on this detail, but thought it was important that Isaac understood that the soldiers were very unkind to Jesus and hurt him. I then held the Jesus puppet up on the cross (I just cut the shape out of a cardboard box I found) and we talked again about how it hurt Jesus and he did this because he loved us.

I really liked having the puppet. It was great to have a 3 dimensional object to help with the reenactment and make the story come to life for Isaac. (I got the puppet as part of a set of 4 from here. They're a little expensive, but we did it as part of Isaac's birthday gift and I knew it was something that would be well used. We keep them in the closet and only get them down occasionally.) Isaac helped me dip the sponge in the "wine vinegar" (water) and give it to Jesus to drink.  (See yellow sponge and black bowl above- also go this at Hobby Lobby in the art section.  I cut off small pieces from it to use in the eggs and then used the large remaining piece for the lesson.)  We talked about how when he was done Jesus said, "It is finished" and died. We talked about how Jesus forgave our sins on the cross and died so we could be with him forever one day.

We then carefully wrapped him in the linen cloth (the remainder of Isaac's stained shirt). I know this may sound silly as it's a children's puppet and a t-shirt, but as we did this, I got tears in my eyes. I can't imagine preparing the bloody, broken body of my Savior for burial.

Isaac was so sweet as he carefully placed Jesus' body in the tomb.

He rolled the stone in front of the tomb and as we talked about how he was in there for 3 days, I pulled Jesus out the back of the tomb through the "trap door" I had cut and pulled off his wrappings.  (To make this, I used a cardboard box and cut the "trap door in the back.  I opened the box and taped the "flaps" together and then taped a piece of black posterboard in front of it cut into the shape of a tomb.  I added a little brown paint to try and make it look a little more like rock, but this wouldn't be necessary.  To make the stone, I used a piece of styrofoam and painted it as well.  You could easily use a piece of cardboard or some large brown crumpled up grocery bags similar to our craft below.)

When Isaac rolled the stone away I said, "Who's in there?" and he said, "Nobody's dere!" Exactly! I then showed him Jesus and we talked about how Jesus is alive! Hallelujah!

Isaac's really into the game Memory these days and I found a matching game with the parts of the Easter story on Christian Preschool Printables. I really do find a lot of stuff here and on their sister site, Bible Story Printables.

Below is the craft we made in Isaac's class on Sunday morning. I got the idea from here. I took a sturdy paper plate and cut it in half. I painted the inside (the side you eat on) of one black and the outside of the other gray. When you staple them together it makes a freestanding "cave." I printed up some verse cards that said, "He is not here; he has risen, just as he said..." Mt. 28:6 and we glued them inside the tomb. Then we took 1-2 brown paper sacks, crumpled them up and taped them closed to make a large stone.

I thought this was simple and great for emphasizing that the tomb was empty on Sunday morning!

Hope you had a blessed Easter celebrating the life you've been given through Jesus' death and resurrection



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