Teaching Easter to Young Children

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If you Google Easter images, your results include millions of pictures of cute bunnies, chicks, and eggs.

Bunnies, chicks, and eggs, are great. They’re fun, cute, and easy to use in home decor. But they’re merely a symbol of why we celebrate Easter.

Little, fuzzy farm animals represent rebirth. The ultimate rebirth, our Savior’s resurrection. The reason for this season. And while I love the eggs and symbols, I want the real message of Easter to come through in my home and life.

He Lives.

Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ died and rose again. He suffered in agony for our sorrows, griefs, and sins in the Garden of Gethsemane. Then He conquered death, rising that Sunday morning from the tomb.

And I want my kids to know it too.

Here’s what I did to teach them. And my lesson plans for teaching them as well. Enjoy your family this Easter season, and celebrate Jesus’ resurrection.

I’ve wanted to make quiet books for my kids, so I decided to do it, one page at a time, starting with Easter. On the left is the Garden of Gethsemane, on the right, the Garden Tomb. I thought about a cross on one of the pages but decided to leave it out for now (my kids are really little and I’m not quite up for that part yet!)

Jesus was perfect and never did anything wrong. Because He was perfect He was able to pray to the Father and ask for forgiveness for all of us. He prayed a long time in the Garden of Gethsemane to atone for all of the things we do wrong, and it was a very hard thing to do. (Use QB Gethsemane page.)

And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him.
And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.
And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,
Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my ^bwill, but thine, be done.
And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.
And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Luke 22:39-44

After His prayer to God, He was taken by evil men and crucified. That means He died in a painful way. Afterward, His body was put into a special cave, or tomb, to be buried. Many people who loved Jesus were very sad and brought nice things to leave by his tomb.

Song about Jesus

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.
8And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.

Matthew 28:5-8

On the Sunday morning after he died, his friends came to the tomb to find the stone rolled away and the cave empty. An angel told them that Jesus was resurrected. Resurrected means to live again after someone has died. The angel sent Jesus’ friends to find Him. They found Jesus who told them he had overcome death and asked them to teach the world about it. (Use QB Tomb page.)

Question: Have you ever done anything wrong or been sad?

Because Jesus prayed, suffered, and rose from the dead we can be forgiven of the things we do wrong or be happy when we are sad and can be made perfect to live with God again.

Make the Quiet Book Page:

Supplies:
Felt (2 sheets blue, 1 sheet green, 1 sheet white, 1 sheet flesh, 1 sheet brown, 1 sheet black)
Glue (I recommend E6000)
Scissors
Velcro Dots
Brad
Flower Embellishment (optional)
Free Pattern

While I enjoy getting my craft on, my main purpose was to create something to help teach. I’d love to spend time sewing this and making it awesome, but that’s not practical for me and my time. If it is for you, great! Make it amazing and send me pictures! But for now, I just cut out the pieces and glued them together.

I wanted Jesus to be sturdier since the kids will move Him around, so His clothes are two layers, as is His hair. I glued the back of Hair under the bottom layer of clothes, then put His head and hands above the bottom layer of clothes. Then I put the top layer of clothes, adding the top layer of hair and the beard last. And since Jesus is pretty important and celestial, I actually used a sparkly white felt for his clothes!

I used the two sheets of blue as the base of my project, then cut grass to add to the bottom. I curved the landscape line, but you could also do straight across for the grass. For the tomb, I cut out the gray and the black shapes and then only put glue around the outer edge of the tomb so that Jesus can actually fit inside. Plus, that meant I could insert the brad to let the stone move back and forth in front of the tomb.

After cutting the tree and leaves out, I glued the tree down and scatter the leaves on the tree. Based on where I thought the leaves looked fun, I put velcro dots on the tree/sky and leaves.

From other projects, I’ve had these tulips sitting around, which my son loves to pop off the stems! Since he likes playing with them already, I added them to the scene with a scrap of brown to make it more of a garden. You could also use buttons or cut flowers from felt as well.

Good luck teaching your little one about Easter!