friday fun finds: teaching easter's meaning

i love easter. i love the spring and all the celebration that easter brings. just like christmas, though, it has become increasingly difficult to teach my kids the meaning of easter in the midst of all the bunnies and eggs. here are some fun things we've found to help us share the meaning of easter with our kiddos.

my kids love these on easter sunday. they are an interactive, fun way to teach your kids the easter story and there are tons of options out there to find or make your own. each egg is filled with an item that will help the kids learn another part of the easter story. eleven items to fill up eggs and one empty egg at the end of the story. perfect visual messages for your little learners.

several stores sell pre-made options.

resurrection eggs

here are some cute ones you can make yourself:

homemade resurrection eggs from mommysavers

easter is full of sweet treats. these ones are adorable and share the easter message.

empty tomb snacks from catholicicing

plant an easter garden early enough to have the grass sprout by easter sunday.

easter garden by colleen hammond

make resurrection rolls...such a great idea for kids!

resurrection rolls by women living well

easter traditions

we lived in south america for five years. our latin american friends know how to do easter right. with their catholic roots, they have an entire week to celebrate "semana santa" or "holy week" and we very easily fell into their traditions. here are some things that we still try to do to make easter last a little longer and to share the meaning of easter with our children.

thursday: this day is called maundy thursday. it is celebrated as the day of the last supper. if you want to learn more about the day, you can read up on it here. we have the tradition of making bread together as a family. we then will take some time during the day to explain the last supper to our kids and eat the bread together.

friday: this day is good friday. we typically will do a craft that has a cross in it. there are tons of great ones on oriental trading that are very cheap. you could also easily make some crafts of your own. my kids are pretty young to grasp all that good friday means but we can share some of the story while they are busy making their crafts.

saturday: this day doesn't have the significance in holy week that the other days do. we use this day to embrace some of the traditions from the u.s. we dye easter eggs and get the easter baskets ready for sunday morning. i also have the kids help to decorate our table for the easter meal. they can decorate easter placemats and put out all of the easter decorations for sunday afternoon. not only will this give them something special to do in preparation for easter but it will also give you one less thing to do if you head off to church on easter morning. if you make a special breakfast for easter morning, it is also great to have some recipes you can make the day before and this can be a great activity to let the kids help to prepare.

sunday: we head to church for easter sunday morning. after our lunch and the quests for easter eggs, we pull our our set of "resurrection eggs" to share the easter story with the kids. these eggs are one of our kids' favorite things to do on easter sunday. check back tomorrow for an easy "how to" to make some of your own.

we hope you have a fantastic easter any way you choose to celebrate it.