Planning for Easter Crafts is one of my favorite things to do as a home-learning Mama! Easter is my favorite season where we focus in our home on the Biblical stories that come from the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Like Christmas, I dedicate over a month to activities and learning around this story and exciting season.
If you are like me, you are working to keep the Easter season Christ focused. I shared a snippet of what our book collection looks like for Easter here on the blog post titled Christian Easter Picture Books. Today I want to share with you some of our Easter crafts and activities, as well as a free Easter coloring sheets download.
Starting Easter
In our home, I like to begin our learning with simply a week of reviewing some summarized Easter Story books. Some of my favorites are The Garden, The Curtain, and The Cross, which gives an excellent “in the beginning” to the resurrection overview. I feel like this book really helps children learn WHY Jesus died on the cross and WHY God’s story unfolds the way it does/has.
I also love to incorporate another book that starts at the beginning, Easter is Coming! These books are easily paired with coloring sheets that I created for you to download for free. Generally speaking, I incorporate a lot of generic spring themed activities to get us started.
Palm Sunday Activities for Kids
This year my son had a little bit more patience than he has in the past. His fascination has been learning the letters of his name and how to spell his name. I created this palm leaf name activity in his activity book. I simply drew a palm branch with as many leaves as his name. I then wrote the letters of his name on dot stickers I got at the Dollar Tree. The objective is to match the letter stickers with the letters of his name on the palm branch. I also included Mark 11:9-10 on the page.
Our second craft for learning about Palm Sunday was handprint palm leaves. This craft is simply using green construction paper, a pen to trace handprints, glue, and sticks to make palm branches. I simply traced my little ones hands, cut them out, and glued them in a palm leaf shape on sticks. I tied yarn on to the stick for a little decoration. We read A Donkey Who Carried a King by R.C. Sproul and Humphrey’s First Palm Sunday by Carol Heyer. We also read Mark 11:1-11 of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry and used our palm branches to act out the story together.
Peter’s Denial Activity for Kids
Peter’s Denial of Jesus is often skipped over when learning about the Easter Story. The story of Peter’s Denial helps us see that Jesus recognizes our human weakness and He forgives those who make mistakes. It also shows us that Jesus knew the Peter would deny him. Our lesson showed us that Jesus is love and He forgives his followers.
I paired this story with a free printable from Ministry Ark. To take it a step further, we glued some feathers on the roosters tail while I read the story. I also read A Friend Who Forgives by Dan DeWitt. You can take a look at a list of the Christian Easter Books here on this blog post.
Resurrection Garden for Kids
In years past we have made a resurrection garden to use as decoration in our home. For this activity this year, I used a small pot, a large pot saucer, potting soil or dirt, and a few other items for decoration. What is beautiful about this craft is that we can visit the story of the Resurrection of Jesus.
We constructed our garden using a small pot, saucer, and dirt. We hunted in our yard for a rock to use as a stone to cover the tomb and sticks to create a cross. You can cover the dirt with grass seed (we used chives, actually) and give it a light mist daily.
We use our garden as a visual representation of the tomb and the resurrection of Jesus. Visit the stories from the Bible in Matthew 28:1-10, Mark 16:1-11, Luke 24:1-12, John 20:1-18.
Cross Activities for Easter
Naturally the cross seems to be a constant symbol in our home, especially during Easter. The cross represents so much for us a Christian Family and we incorporate many crafts with the cross during Easter.
Some of my favorites have been unfinished wood crosses that we got at Dollar Tree. You could easily paint these crosses however you’d like or using spring color paint. This year I decided to put some painters tape on the cross to create a stained glass look. Using strips of painters tape cut in half, I criss crossed them on the wooden cross. My son painted the cross and when the paint was dry, I removed the painters tape.
Second, we created a stained glass cross in our window using washable paint, dish soap, and painters tape. A similar concept as the craft above, I used painters tape to tape off a cross in the center of the window and painted it white. Mix a couple drops of dish soap with washable paint to create your own window paint. I used more painters tape to create an informal pattern on the window to look like stained glass and painted the sections with different colored paint. When everything was dry, I removed the tape.
