For Christians, Easter is one of the most significant events in the Christian calendar. I love teaching my children the Biblical Easter story each year. This year we have been reading a collection of books from Koorong* and have followed up the story with craft activities. All our craft activities have been simple. (Hello! Three 3 year olds make simple projects challenging anyway!) We have done stickers into scrapbooks and coloured in and painted with their watercolour palates this week, but my favourite activity of the week was doing these Resurrection tombs with a paper plate, paint, push pins and colouring-in. (You can add some paddle pop stick crosses to the top also, but I found this was enough with four children 4 and under!)
There are instructions and the printable here. Their example was quite obviously not completed by a three year old! My nephew also joined us doing this activity and he thought it was a lot of fun also.
Lining the children up to read a story first felt like I was in a classroom! Mind you, this lot had reduced attention spans compared to school children! (And my students didn’t get away with using a footrest) It may have taken a few prompts and some dramatised reading, but “The Easter Story” (Candle Books) did manage to keep their attention until the end.
The Easter Story (Candle Books) – $2.99
The bright illustrations also helped catch the children’s interest. Taken from Candle Bible for Kids the story closely follows the Biblical account only with age appropriate language. It is probably best suited for primary aged children, being suitable both as a read aloud or as a readable text depending on ability level.
The Very First Easter (The Beginners Bible) – $2.99
This story was more suitable for pre-school and lower primary children. There was bright, highly animated (and fun) illustrations, simple language and not too long. At the beginning of each passage scripture references were given so you would be able to examine the story with your child in the Bible if you wished. My children enjoyed reading this book with Daddy.
The Easter Story (Antonia Jackson & Giuliano Ferri) – $9.99
Another Biblical account of the Easter story recounting from Palm Sunday, the crucifixion and resurrection. This book has particularly beautiful illustrations. The type of illustrations children tend to linger over and examine intently.
Easter – Bible Comic (Scripture Union) $3.99
This has been my 8 year old son’s favourite book this year. I always get so excited when he is inspired to read independently. Comics are a great way to get children inspired to read, especially boys. Once again this is a highly Biblical account of the Easter story, only this time retold in comic strips. References are given to the corresponding story in the Bible so the children can go and read it for themselves in the Bible.
Included is also Easter facts, a word search, quiz, and an explanation of what Easter is all about. It is actually a really great little book to include in a child’s basket on Easter morning or would be great to give away to family, friends or neighbours. After all, what child doesn’t like a comic?
Easter Sticker Book – $5.99
Stickers always cause children a great deal of excitement, so an Easter sticker book is a bit exciting!
The story is well written and long enough for children to listen to it, but not to long that they get impatient to start sticking! (Mostly!) I sat down and did this with the triplets who were very engaged. We will need to complete it over a few sittings I think since three year olds tend to fight a lot and although it was a good exercise in patience (they each had to wait for their turn to stick a sticker in), there’s only so much that can be expected of a three year old before it gets to distressing that “he put the grasshopper on the rock and I wanted to” or “I want to put the wine on the table like we have at church”, etc, etc.
One more week until Easter and our household is certainly gearing up for the big event! Thanks to Koorong for their help preparing the children for the big day! I love that all these books follow the Easter story closely to the Biblical account and are so affordable. If you check out Koorong’s website they have all these books plus a huge range of Easter books for children as well as adults. Definitely a great chocolate alternative accompaniment.
Are you doing anything with your family in the lead up to Easter? Do you have any favourite Easter books?
*Thanks also to Koorong for gifting these books to us. This is not a sponsored post and my opinions are my own. Plus, the pictures speak for themselves that my children truly enjoyed the stories!
5 Comments
This is a great post Caitlin! When I was pregnant with Esther and I was visiting clients doing plumbing work the church jobs would give me a book for our new arrival and strangely they were all about Jesus and Easter! As a result I haven’t gone to Koorong to get Easter books because of the collection I was gifted from the churches. That paper plate craft looks great. I might do that with the girls on Good Friday.
That’s the thing with books, isn’t it? You get a good collection together and it will last for years. Especially seasonal books that you pull out once a year. They also become a lovely tradition. I’d recommend looking out for the Bible comic if it (or a variation of) is around when Esther gets older. I’m sure she would love it. Good Friday would be the perfect day to do the paper plate craft.
Thanks Caitlin, the sticker book might be something suitable for us at the moment, and with only 2 children, a bit easier to deal with than yours! Love the idea of the comic book too. Might find some time on Good Friday to get my craft on!
Good luck with your crafty pursuits! The sticker book and the comic book are great choices. I’m sure your children will love them.
I will have to make another stop next time I’m in Toowoomba to get those stickers! Note to self!