Teaching about Easter

Life has certainly been a whirlwind lately....but thankfully, I've had a few extra days to slow down and re-focus on what is really important.  I teach at a small, private Christian school in which we are given Good Friday and Easter Monday off.  This extra time has been such a blessing to me.  It has given me a little time to reflect on my priorities...and also appreciate how blessed I am to be able to share the love of Jesus in my classroom.  Although I know it may be a little late to be posting about Easter ideas....I personally will spend another week with that focus, so I thought I might as well do a post on some of my favorite Easter teaching resources! {Some of them are from "throw back" posts!}

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 I use in my classroom...

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 (bottled..not the trays), 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!   

    

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

Two years ago, 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  one of our Palm Sunday walk-throughs.   

NOTE:  Be sure to check out my Easter posts from the past too... as past photos were pretty epic too!  CLICK HERE to view them! We used different costumes last year...but truly, you can pull this off with a few towels and bedsheets!

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!

And... I think one of my all time favorite video resources is this one!  It's a short and perfectly appropriate way to explain Easter to little ones!  If you can't use it in your classroom, perhaps you can use it with your own family!

Writer's workshop is an important part of our day EVERY DAY...and Easter is a perfect time to see what kiddos understand and are thinking about in regard to Jesus.  Take a peek.... These just MELT. MY.HEART. 

(Don't you love this pic?  The little dude is having fun collecting eggs...but "thinking" about what Jesus did for him!)  

Jesus had his "last dinner"... LOVE that one!

LOVE to see these little ones fall in love with Jesus!  

{Their independent writing skills are pretty good too!}

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And that's not all... Just take a look at this writing piece that one of my "kinders" did the day after spring break last year.  {Talk about about a "text to self" connection, in terms of taking Bible lessons to heart!!}  This is what my sweet kinder-baby wrote after visiting her grandmother who had cancer.

Thank you God for what you did for ALL of us on Good Friday and Easter, so that we can have eternal life... 

and look forward our own Heavenly reunions!

That's it.  Just a little Easter Joy to share with ya' today!