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Monday, April 6, 2009

Kids Crafts for Easter Week

Okay, friends, I posted the Easter lessons and crafts that I'm doing with the girls this week on Facebook and have gotten so much interest that I thought I'd post a little blurb here all about it.

So, if you have kids and want to do some fun Bible stories and crafts this week, try this:

Monday we'll color and cut out paper Jesus figures and put them on a stick to use all week. Then we'll make paper palm leaves, put our Jesus figures on cut-out donkey figures, then wave our branches and sing the Hosanna song.

Tuesday we tear up bits of construction paper, spray lots of perfume on them, make painted "jars" out of more construction paper (paint the paper, cut out front and back jar shapes, staple together on all sides except the top), put the perfume paper in the jars, and pour the ‘perfume’ on our Jesus’ figures feet.

Wednesday, make our gardens of Gethsemane from throwaway plastic containers…go outside…put in dirt, plants and flowers. Put in our little Jesus figures.

Thursday is family communion.

Friday we make little crosses and put our Jesus figures on the crosses. Then we take them down and put Him in a tomb, i.e., in little boxes with rocks on top.

Then, after they are in bed on Saturday night, we take the Jesus figures out and hide them somewhere. When the girls get up and check their tombs, “Voila!”

On Sunday morning, Jesus is risen! Then the girls go around finding their Jesus figure.

Oh, and I also read the corresponding scripture passage for each activity. I did this a couple years ago with just Bethany and Joelle and it worked out GREAT. They just loved it and it was a super neat way to go through the different events of the week with the appropriate sadness on Friday and celebration on Sunday. Really fun.

So, there ya go!

4 comments:

Caleb's Momma said...

Thank you, thank you. I will do this next year, and may do some of it this week. Tell me how Bria and Jayna like it, as that will help to know for Caleb.

Marlo Schalesky said...

So far Bria and Jayna are loving it. They had a great time with coloring their Jesus figures and putting on the sticks, and doing the donkeys and palm branches. I did the cutting out for them, though. They probably could have done it themselves, but I don't trust them with scissors anymore after the haircutting incident of a few weeks ago. :-(

Anonymous said...

I really like your ideas and encourage you to read the article found at http://www.cgom.org/Publications/ Booklets/Resurrection_NOT_Sunday. htm. which gives an exact time frame so that you can be teaching your children accurately. I love all your books and God has used your words to touch me. God bless you!

Marlo Schalesky said...

Thanks for the comments! I so appreciate when readers leave me a note to let me know they're checking out my blog and finding it useful.

Also, the note about timeframe reminded me that I should haved clarified that when I do the lessons and crafts I've decided not to follow the timeline exactly, mostly because I want to do a different craft/lesson each day, so I like to move some around(like we make our gardens earlier, Palm Sunday stuff on Monday instead, etc.) so the activities are spread out through the week. I found that there is so much interesting "stuff" that went on especially "on the night he was betrayed" (communion, footwashing, the garden) that I wanted to cover it all, but not all in one day. I do love doing the resurrection on Sunday morning, though, before church. It's really neat to start out with the empty tombs/boxes before the girls even get out of their pj's, then when we go to church it makes it really meaningful them. So the combo of the "where's Jesus" time and then the church celebration has been really neat.