We want our children to know what Easter is REALLY celebrating, so we have spiritual lessons throughout the month so that the entire month is about the Savior, but we only bring out the 'bunny and eggs and candy' stuff about two weeks before Easter. Easter day is reserved for family, food, and faith-- no egg hunt for us on Sunday, if we can avoid it; we try to make that a Saturday event. Some of our spiritual traditions include:
colorful magnets (I took the coloring pages available for free from LDS.org and colored them by hand, covered in clear contact paper (the poor-woman's version of laminating), then glued to magnet sheets and cut out--carefully!) and and a map of Jerusalem (from the 2012 April Friend magazine) taped together and contact papered:
testimony eggs filled with symbolic items from our Savior's last week. The link isn't our exact set (which was a gift to us), but it gives the idea. There are lots of these on the web, so browse and find one you like. Our set actually has 15 eggs rather than the usual 12 because it includes 3 after the Resurrection up to the Ascension.:
a Passover dinner that allows us an opportunity to talk about the symbolism of the Old Testament meal and how it testifies of Christ as Savior (we don't actually own any Sedar plates, but we have all the foods on a regular plate)
Resurrection (marshmallow) rolls with 4 easy symbols of Christ's burial and resurrection
Easter-eve resurrection meringue cookies with more than 10 slightly-more-complicated symbols of Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection.
There are others I'd like to add to our traditions, but we'll have to add new ones each year as our children grow more mature. Preparing the various things does, after all, take time. The great thing is, once you've got a good thing goin, you can just keep repeating it year after year!
These look really great!
ReplyDeleteWow!
ReplyDeleteThat is all I can say. I'm super impressed you're able to fit all of that in. That's amazing, and so important for their testimonies.
We too try to focus on Easter's true celebrations, and I'll definately look at incorporating a few of these ideas.(especially as my children get older) Thanks for sharing!
I love your magnet map of Jerusalem and pictures! That really helps kids visualize the reality of what happened. I might have to go find the pics and prepare them for next year. Although my coloring won't be quite as pretty as yours. :) We do resurrection rolls too. This year we are doing the Countdown to Easter from the Friend which has different activities for each day of the week before Easter as you put different puzzle piece on the page. I am liking it but I keep forgetting to do it each day so we have some catch up to do today and tomorrow. It's so important to help our kids learn the true meaning of these fun holidays! Great job!
ReplyDeletecute! Looks like a lot of fun!
ReplyDeleteWow! Your girls should have a good understanding of all the different parts of Easter. I'm impressed with your mom skills!
ReplyDeleteThanks for including my Resurrection Rolls as part of your spiritual traditions. Blessings!
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