Easter

This week we focused on Easter instead of doing our normal letter of the week.  I wanted to share the fun things we’ve do so far, and also the things we plan to do the rest of the week.  There are so many fun crafts and activities to do that involve the Easter holiday; however, I knew that my main focus would be to share the story of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.  This is a difficult story to tell young children who don’t really understand death yet, but I tried to make it as simple as possible as I shared it with Brooklyn each day this week.  In addition to the crafts listed below, we plan to do a few other fun activities later in the week including an Easter egg hunt in our backyard.  To make this Easter egg hunt extra fun, I am planning to put puzzle pieces in the eggs in place of candy.  Once all of the eggs are found, Brooklyn will be able to put the puzzle together to make sure she found all of the eggs.  I’m also hoping to paint and/or dye hard boiled eggs with Brooklyn if we get a chance this week.  

Here’s what we’ve done so far:

Craft #1 - Paper Easter Egg Wreath

I always like to do a craft each holiday that can be displayed to decorate our home.  This year I decided we would make a wreath for our front door.  I first found a piece of old poster board.  I traced a large bowl to make a circle on the poster board.  I then used a smaller bowl to make a circle inside the large circle.  I cut out the large circle first and then the center circle - this left me with a poster board wreath.  I also used a piece of scrap poster board to make an egg template.  I traced this template onto some scrapbook paper scraps to make different colored eggs.  Once the eggs were all cut out, Brooklyn glued them all around the wreath.  We made this into a fun game by sorting the eggs by color then making a pattern around the wreath.  When all of the eggs were glued onto the wreath, we tied a ribbon around it and hung it on our front door.  

Craft #2 - Bunnies, Carrots, and Fingerprints.  

We started this craft by clipping a pom pom to a clothespin.  This created a circular stamp that Brooklyn used to paint the bottom half of her paper brown to represent the ground.  (To give her a guide of where to paint, I painted a line across her paper and told her to paint below it.)  Next, she used the same pom pom paintbrush to make four circles on the ground - these would be the bottoms of the bunnies.  (She decided to make four to represent our family).  It was then time to start getting her fingers in the paint!  She used her thumb, dipped in brown paint, to put a circle on top of her other circles to make her bunny’s heads.  She then made carrots under the ground using her other thumb, pointer finger, and pinky to make three orange dots.  She used another finger to make white tails in the center of her bunny’s bottoms.  Lastly, she used her last few fingers to make blue clouds and a yellow sun in the sky.  I helped her add ears on her bunnies and leaves on her carrots to complete this cute picture.  

Craft #3 - Jesus’ Death, Burial, and Resurrection

(Front)

(Back)
I read the story of Jesus dying on the cross for us, being placed in a tomb, and rising from the dead from Brooklyn’s Bible.  We then made a craft to help her visualize this story.  To prepare for this craft, I collected two paper plates, a piece of black paper, and a piece of brown paper.  I cut three crosses and a large circle (the same size as the bottom of the plate) out of the black paper.  I cut an arch out of one of the paper plates - like the opening of a tomb and then cut out a large brown circle  to use as the stone which was rolled in front of the tomb.  I gave Brooklyn the two paper plates.  She colored the bottom side of the cut paper plate brown (she first used a marker then later wanted to sponge paint it).  Next, she used watercolors to paint the bottom side of the other plate like a sky.  While the paint was drying, we made our snack - empty tomb rolls - to illustrate how Jesus was put in the tomb and then rose from the dead.  Once we put the rolls in the oven, we finished up our craft.  Brooklyn glued the black circle to the top side of the watercolored plate, and the three crosses onto her watercolored sky.  Next, we attached the large brown circle, the stone, with a brad in front of the tomb.  Lastly, I stapled the two paper plates together so that the bottoms of the plates were both facing out (you should see the black circle when you look inside the tomb).  I then repeated the Bible story by showing Brooklyn the cross where Jesus died for us, flipping the plate around to the tomb where He was buried, then rolling the stone away to see that Jesus wasn’t there - He has risen!  We finished off our school day by enjoying our empty tomb rolls.  This was just one final illustration of Jesus rising from the dead and leaving an empty tomb.    

Painting the sky

Making empty tomb rolls

The tomb is empty!