We made these easter love empty tombs at PPP messy church on Good Friday. This one was made by a3 year old. I could have shared a more "perfect" one with the heart facing the right way and the mini egg just off to the sue as if rolled away. But the child who made this brought it to me and said "look Emma, this is the empty tomb. Jesus was in it but he came back to life and he is still alive. The heart is the love he gives us all" What more needs to be said, what an amazing expression of what Jesus dogs for us all. Here are the simple instructions for making this yourself: - take one rich tea biscuit - cover in a thick layer of green coloured icing (made with water) - place a jammie dodger at the back of the biscuit - this is the tomb - place a mini egg in front of the jammie dodger - this is the tomb stone
Here's a preview of one of our crafts for Messy Easter in just over a week! These are 'special cups' and reflect the drinking of wine at the Last Supper. We bought some plastic wine glasses from the pound shop (8 for £1, which we thought was a bargain!) and then decorated them with decor pens that will write on just about anything! Here is our sample version... Looking forward to seeing what Messy Church goers come up with!
Stephen and I teach the 2’s and 3’s class at church. After the lesson they usually have a coordinating page to color. That is all fine and dandy but for Easter I wanted to do somethin…
Knutselen met kinderen; creatief tips, voorbeelden en ideeën
He has risen! He has risen indeed! With Easter approaching I wanted to do an Easter craft that is meaningful. This resurrection craft for Easter definitely celebrates the true meaning of Easter. I also intend this to be my Easter special day craft for my AWANA Cubbies series. The stone door can twist into place,...Read More
Dear Friends This post is quite a bit longer than what I normally write, but I have such a deep desire to share with you what I have learnt recently about ways in which Christian parents can really minister the redemptive message of easter to their little ones. It is my prayer that you will be encouraged and blessed by this. We worship at a charismatic Protestant church where the liturgical year of the church is not really observed. We do have special Christmas and Good Friday services, but that is about the extent to which the traditional seasons of the church is acknowledged. Yet, a while ago I one day found a link on Ann Voskamp's blog, A Holy Experience, that really made me think differently about the significance that observing the liturgical year can have for Protestant Christians. It was an article by Mark Roberts called An Introduction to the Christian Year (you can read this excellent article by clicking on the link) in which he beautifully explains the Liturgical Year, the colours of the Christian year, and how being mindful of these "can enrich the variety of our worship..." and therefore "...help us to have a broader, deeper, and more vital relationship with the living God." NOT a Biblical Demand I believe that legalism is one of the easiest snares we as Christians can get entangled in, and therefore I want to be very clear that for us, observing the seasons of the church is not something we HAVE to do. As Mr Roberts said in his article "Nothing in Scripture demands recognition of the church year. We do not have in the New Testament some equivalent to Leviticus 25, where God lays out for Israel the major fasts and feasts during the year. So, although the liturgical year is structured around the biblical story of Jesus, it is not commanded in Scripture in the way of the Jewish holidays for the Jews. Of course, Christians aren’t commanded to celebrate Easter or Christmas in the way we do either. The church year, therefore, is not something all Christians must observe, or must observe in exactly the same way. (In fact, Eastern Orthodox believers have a different pattern throughout the year and even celebrate Easter on a different day!) Nevertheless, I believe that an awareness of the liturgical year can enrich our worship and therefore our relationship with God." [my emphasis] And a little more reading... A little while after I read this article, I was reading an excellent fictional trilogy by South African author Marzanne Leroux-Ten Boom that tells the story of a young South African man who discovers his Jewish roots and decides to visit Israel in search of some relatives. He ends up marrying a young Jewish girl and together they start carving out a life for themselves amidst the volatility of current-day Israel. It is an amazing story, but what really impacted me even more was the author's meaningful insight into Jewish tradition and how it is interpreted and applied by Messianic Jews. I loved reading about the Jewish festivals and how they make up the 'bones' of Jewish life. I was especially touched by the way Jewish families celebrate Passover, and by the beauty of the Seder meal. And then the last straw! In the April 2011 edition of a local Afrikaans Christian woman's magazine (LEEF met hart en siel, for my local readers) Lizette Murray wrote an article about how families can celebrate Easter in a God-honouring, Jesus-glorifying way by surrounding ourselves and our children with tangible reminders of the suffering He endured, and His glorious victory over death. It took my breath away! I read it over and over and really felt God's gentle nudge to start preparing my heart and our home for an encounter with Christ during this Holy Week. (I will do a separate post with snippets from the article to encourage you!) So... I asked God to show me how!! The magazine article was a great start, but the very next morning I also opened my inbox to find this post by Ann Voskamp: Why a Christian Family May celebrate Passover: A Messianic Seder. Oh, and then this one: How To Make an Easter Garden. And from there on the Lord just lead me to the most wonderful resources, many of which I will love to share with you over the next few days. Only God can touch our children's hearts I hope you will take time to read the prayer I posted yesterday about my surrendering this week and all that we will be doing at the feet of Jesus. I am realizing more and more that I am just an instrument in God's hand: I can do many things to teach and instruct my little ones, but only God himself can work in my children's hearts, turning my feeble attempts into something lasting and true. A little glimpse into our week: Again, I draw inspiration from Mrs. Voskamp! Please visit her blog to see these breathtaking Advent and Lenten rings her son makes. However, with the exchange rate between our countries being what it is, I was just not able to purchase one of them. So I borrowed from her idea and went to the garage to see what I could come up with. I found a piece of Supawood left over from a project, and painted it in squares of Lenten and Easter colours. In case you are interested, here are the colours: Palm Sunday: Grey (the colour associated with most donkeys :-), and to signify Jesus' sadness over Jerusalem) Monday to Wednesday: ever-darkening hues of purple Thursday: deep wine red, to remind us of the wine of the New Covenant Friday: Red, for the blood that was shed for us Saturday: Black, as we mourn His death Sunday: White, to celebtare His glorious resurrection! Starting on Palm Sunday we will move the figure of Jesus forward one space every evening, and a light a candle on each new square. Except for Friday and Saturday. These are days of mourning. I made a rather rough little plate and cup out of clay for Thursday night to represent the Last Supper, and on Friday the figure of Jesus will not be on the board. A simple wooden cross will instead remind us of the Son of God who bore our sins and shame. I got the idea for this Holy Week banner from Diary of a Sower. She made one for each of her children to hang on their doors and add an element on each of the significant days of this week. Ours will hang in a prominent place in our home, and the children will add a little felt reminder on the appropriate day. The symbols fasten with velcro. Sometime during the week will also plant our own easter garden. We've already gathered our supplies, and I made a clay tomb and stone. More about how we will use this later in the week... I have also printed out beautiful colouring pages for Sweetpea to enjoy as we go through the week. I am not sure if we will get around to this ourselves this year, but here are some amazing Christian Easter Crafts you may want to use with your own children this week: (Click on the links) I love love LOVE this Resurrection Set from Catholic Icing!! If I can get 10 toilet rolls together by Sunday, we are definitely doing this!! Last Supper Craft, also from Catholic Icing. This will be the first thing we do next year, when Sweetpea is just that little bit older. I will be keeping my eyes peeled for a print of the famous painting in the meantime, and use the suggestions for studying a bit of art as well! I think making this Life of Jesus mini book from DLTK will go a long way in helping little ones see the whole picture of Jesus's time on earth. AN EGG-FREE ZONE I have been struggling for days about whether or not to do a post about why we do NOT buy or eat easter eggs, or use it as a symbol or in cutesy 'easter' activities. This is, however, something I feel VERY strongly about, so I have decided to provide you with some links for information about the pagan origins of these symbols. Please click here or here (this is an especially well researched article). And if you would like to learn about where hot cross buns come from, click here. (This, by the way, was not written from a Christian perspective.) My husband is leaving for a missions outreach to Botswana later this week, so we will be celebrating our Seder meal on Monday night instead of Thursday. I am very, very excited about sharing it with you, but I still need to go sew the table cloth for this special dinner, so off I go! May you and yours be blessed this week! I am linking this post to Impress your Kids, who is having a Meaningful Easter Link-Up. She calls it Making it about the Lamb and not the bunny!! (I love that!!)
Forget perfectly pretty eggs. If you're doing toddler Easter egg dyeing this year, embrace an afternoon of creative chaos with these five incredibly fun (and messy!) ideas.
Cool craft you can do with your bffs or by yourself
Did you know that there are 50 days in the Easter season? Not one, but 50! That's even more days than there are in Lent! The Easter season begins with Easter Sunday and ends with
Check out this fun and easy Printable Easter Story craft that will explain the Resurrection to your little ones in an interactive way. A Fun Easter Story Craft.
1. Easter Bonnets Apparently they were a thing. More here. 2. Easter Egg Museum, Ukraine The museum is not only shaped like an egg (14 m in height and 10 m in diameter), but parts of the exterior and inside of the dome are painted to resemble a pysanka (the P
We’ve put together a few clever ideas to immerse your children in a creative world of messy play and inventive art.
Forget perfectly pretty eggs. If you're doing toddler Easter egg dyeing this year, embrace an afternoon of creative chaos with these five incredibly fun (and messy!) ideas.
I wasnt going to blog tonight.. its Good Friday. But I wanted to show you an amazing sight I saw tonight, and also the great little craft I ...
Indiana Jones may have exaggerated a little bit about the job, but you still get to dress like Alan Grant from Jurassic Park, travel all over the world and uncover some mind-blowing relics of the past. Here's 10 reminders of why this is the coolest career going. 1. That time they discovered the
As most of you already know, I teach in a small, private Christian school. So, as you might imagine, the weeks leading up to Easter are a very special time! We spend a good portion of our instructional time teaching and learning about Jesus and the incredible sacrifice He made for us on Good Friday... and also celebrating the true meaning of Easter morning! I just LOVE this time of year! I mean, what could be better than celebrating the fact that God loves us so much, that He sent His one and only Son to die for us (and our sins) on the cross...so that we can live eternally in Heaven forever! #blessed Now, I understand that many of you will not be able to use the ideas I'm blogging about in this post in your classroom, as you may teach in a public school. (I spent my first 10 years teaching in public school myself.) However, I'm going to share them anyways...for my private teacher followers... and perhaps for you to use at home as "mom/dad/aunt/grandma" with your own kiddos! Here are a few of the Christian Easter activities/resources from our classroom last week... Easter "Write the Room" Activity I just LOVE Alessia Albanese's "Write the Room" activities! She is my go-to girl for these activity resources. Check them out HERE! (If you don't have this type of center in your classroom, I would highly suggest giving it a try! The kids LOVE it!) Let me explain, in case you don't know how a"Write the Room" center works. You place different "cards" around your classroom (can be theme words, like this one... or it can be math equations, or anything!)... and then the kiddos who are assigned to that center grab a clipboard and recording sheet and search around the room for the hidden cards. When they find them, they write the words (or answer to the math equation or whatever) onto the recording sheet. Here is a example of the recording sheet I use. (I always use a two-sided recording sheet. I always designate which side of the page the kids MUST start with... and then they flip to the second side if they finish the first.) OH! Please note that Alessia's Easter Write-the-Room Set includes a FULL Easter, non-religious, set of cards/recording sheets too! Book Nook/Reading Center Activity At my "Book Nook" center, my students typically work on making different types of interactive emergent readers, which they complete and then place in their familiar reading boxes. This week, we used this little gem! The students read the sentence on each page... then cut out and glue on the corresponding picture. The set even comes with a pre-made "answer key" booklet which you can leave at the center too, if you choose. You can find this awesome resource in "Let's Learn S'More's" TPT store! Click HERE for more details! Easter Art Activity We also complete this little Easter art activity. The kiddos simply painted the background paper with liquid watercolors, then cut out the black silhouette hill and crosses. The liquid watercolors dry quickly.. and you can glue on the ground and crosses about ten minutes after you paint! I'll be the first to admit, that the pics I took today of this year's projects are NOT the best! I took them with my phone, and the lighting was just not right! They looked all washed out! So... right under these 3 pics from this year, you will find a few pics from last year. They are MUCH better! Easter Story Video We watched this very age-appropriate Easter video on YouTube. It is VERY child friendly/developmentally appropriate in regard to Jesus' death on the cross. Walking with Jesus... Palm Sunday Skit Last year I had a "grand" last-minute idea to create a Palm Sunday "walk-through" skit of the events of that special day. You know, "bring it to life" for my kiddos! Ok. Ok. If you know me, you know that any excuse to use costumes is just my "thing!" Here are a few pictures of this year's Palm Sunday walk-through. NOTE: Be sure to check out my Easter post from last year too... as the photos from last year were pretty epic too! CLICK HERE to view last year's post! We used different costumes last year. {We are undergoing a new building project and... well let's just say some of our play props are in inaccessible storage.} Do you celebrate Palm Sunday or Easter in your classroom? If so, I'd love to hear what YOU do in your classroom to make Easter come alive! Easter Blessings!
1. Easter Egg Museum, Ukraine The museum is not only shaped like an egg (14 m in height and 10 m in diameter), but parts of the exterior and inside of the dome are painted to resemble a pysanka (the Polish/Ukrainian tradition of easter eggs). This is the only museum in the world dedicated to
A simplified version of the traditional Italian Easter cake, this is an EASY Colomba di Pasqua recipe made without yeast. No messy kneading and no waiting for dough to rise!
Flaounes are a traditional cheese-filled pastry meant to be enjoyed for Easter after weeks of giving up dairy and eggs for Lent.
Summer is the perfect season for engaging children in creative, messy art. Last summer, my boys created dozens of gorgeous Squirt Gun Paintings in our
A simple way to make fancy DIY egg shakers for kids! Explore sound by filling with different objects! This is a great use for leftover plastic Easter Eggs!
Get Your Free Printable Subscribe to our newsletter today and get our free printable... No More, "Mom, I'm Bored!" Success! Now check your email to get your No More "Mom, I'm Bored!" Printable... Refer to it whenever the kids get restless! There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again. First Name Email Address …
Earlier this week I wrote a list of 10 cool ways to decorate your eggs this Easter, but if none of those seemed up your alley, perhaps you're looking for something a little more... heavenly. Well then these eggs from Dream A Little Bigger are sure to help. These beautifully spacy eggs are filled with stars, nebulas and more.The process is surprisingly simple -though quite messy, and the results are absolutely striking.Via Laughing Squid...
Forget perfectly pretty eggs. If you're doing toddler Easter egg dyeing this year, embrace an afternoon of creative chaos with these five incredibly fun (and messy!) ideas.
How to make herbal bath tea with botanicals. Soak away in a warm tub filled to the brim with healing botanicals with no messy clean up required!
Forget ordinary napkins. Sure they'll keep your face clean, but they won't help to dress you up. The Dress for Dinner Necktie Napkins will not only keep your face food-free, but they will also dress you for the occasion. They will also save you some dry-cleaner bills as well. You get 20 3-ply nap
These handprint bunnies are so simple to make and they are SO CUTE! You can make this bunny craft using construction paper, coloured printer paper, or even plain white paper if you're in a pinch. Handprint Bunny Craft This is such a simple Easter craft that you can make with the kids - and the best part is that you probably have everything you need at home already! Just grab some paper, scissors and a few pens, markers or pencil crayons - that's all you need! This craft is really simple, super fast, and completely adorable when you're done! Video
1. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s art and antique collection heads to auction The couple’s Westport, Connecticut, barn home. The couple’s Westport, Connecticut, barn home. Check out the auction lots on Sotheby's. 2. Why Young Collectors Are Buying Fussy Antiq
Check out all of my faith-based Easter crafts and recipies for kids here! I've been working on something that I've had in my head since last Easter, and I'm very excited to reveal it to
1. Women sit for a portrait in Salzburg, Austria, 1929 Found on Nat Geo Found 2. These Eggs The latest chef d'oeuvres by jeweler Ananov, one of the main exhibits he made for the "400 years of the House of Romanov" at the Historical Museum of Moscow in 2013. Ananov’s Easter
