Celebrating Easter with Children
On Easter Sunday, we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus! How wonderful it is to gather with friends and family and rejoice that our debt has been paid! As we prepare our hearts to celebrate a risen Savior, my hope is that our homes are filled with joy, anticipation, and gratitude. With a house full of children, it’s easy for our days and weeks to hurry by. But celebrating Easter? We do not want to miss this. This year, let’s intentionally set aside moments of our days to remember that Easter is coming! Let’s celebrate in fun ways as we go on a scavenger hunt and dye Easter eggs. But let’s also celebrate in holy ways as we take communion as a family and memorize John 3:16. Every day and every year as we have conversations with our children about each day of the Passion Week, I pray that their faith and understanding will deepen. I hope to raise children who love God, are excited about eternity with him, and who are filled with gratitude for Jesus’ death on the cross.
20 Days of Easter Activities
In order to intentionally celebrate Easter with my children, I plan 20 days of activities leading up to Resurrection Sunday. 20 is an arbitrary number and you can absolutely make this your own by planning just 7 days, 14 days, a full 3 weeks, etc. To keep things simple, I’ll share our 20-day plan.
Below you’ll find a calendar with important days like Palm Sunday and Good Friday already filled in. The rest of the calendar is blank so that you can fill in activities on the days that work best for your family and your schedule. Along with the calendar, you’ll see a chart of activity cards. I’ve included 24 cards so that you can choose 20 for your family.
Once you’ve chosen 20 activities, you’ll need to do 2 things. First, fill out the calendar, listing which activity you’d like to do each day. Once your calendar is complete, you’re ready to create your activity eggs. Cut out the activity cards and set aside the 20 that you’ll be using. Next, take 20 plastic Easter eggs and write the numbers 1-20 on the eggs (one number per egg). Finally, fill the Easter eggs according to your activity calendar. We prefer to count down to Easter, so the first day’s egg will be #20 and the day before Easter will be #1. Once your 20 Easter eggs are labeled and filled, simply place them in an Easter basket. Make sure to gather up all the supplies you’ll need in advance. I like to take all my supplies and place them in a bucket so I can keep everything organized and ready!
Below I’ve linked helpful resources for the activity cards. You can also visit my Easter board on Pinterest to browse more ideas.
I created a free resource titled Biblical Truths for Children. It is available for download in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. One of the activity pages centers around the following truth: “Jesus died on the cross to save me from my sins.” You can download the resource here & use this activity to teach your children about Jesus’ life and death on the cross (see pages 23-30).
Easter Scavenger Hunt - For this activity, you’ll need to print the scavenger hunt cards & hide them in the correct spaces of your home. The final clue leads to a prize! You can be creative with this. I grabbed some Easter coloring books, window gel clings, and a cookie decorating kit to put into an Easter basket! You could put a gift card to get ice cream in a large Easter egg or a dollar bill for your child to take to The Dollar Tree. It doesn’t need to be extravagant!
Praise Poster: “He died for _____, but He has risen!”
Memorize John 3:16 — You can find ABC Memory Verses in my free Biblical Truths for Children resource. The “F’ memory verse is John 3:16 (see page 48 & 59).
Make a Stained Glass Cross - The post I’ve linked uses contact paper and tissue squares to create a DIY suncatcher. While the example is an Easter egg, you could also make a cross. We love to display these in on our windows. You can also purchase a kit like this one or this one from Hobby Lobby.
Make and deliver treats - We love to make my Holiday Snack Mix all year long. We’ll use colorful Easter M&Ms to make the mix more festive!
Easter Egg Snack Hunt - This activity makes snack time egg-tra fun! Fill Easter eggs with your children’s favorite snacks, then hide them for your kids to find! My children request this activity year round.
Children’s Books for Easter
Easter Devotional for Children
However you choose to celebrate Easter with your children, I pray it’s a time of remembering the great love of our Savior and celebrating the hope we have because of Him! Happy Easter!