Easter Activities for Families, Churches, and Communities

Celebrating holy days is an important way to help children experience God’s redemptive activity through the rhythms of the church year. Revisiting the Christmas and Easter stories year after year are a way for all ages to rehearse key moments in God’s redemptive plan as told in Scripture. This is why the Dwell curriculum includes an Easter story in each year of its materials. In addition to those sessions, here are a variety of ways to celebrate Easter with children whether in your Dwell group, at home, in children’s ministry, or with your community:

• Have an Easter Party! Package supplies to celebrate Easter in a closed box or bag. Promise your group that there is something to celebrate Easter in your container. Wait a little while before pulling out the materials, letting the children see that you have kept your promise. Then talk about how God kept his promise by sending Jesus. (Check out suggestions for doing this activity in a children’s ministry setting in the attached PDF.)
• Read The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross. Starting in Genesis, this book gives an overview of the history of Israel, highlighting the significance of the temple curtain that was torn when Jesus died. It also has an accompanying devotional for the 15 days leading up to Easter.
• Plant a resurrection garden. Plant grass seed on Palm Sunday and you’ll have vibrant green grass on Easter Sunday—a beautiful picture of  the new life we have because of Jesus’s resurrection.
• Read one of the stories from God's Big Easter Story: A Holy Week Journey for Families and do the accompanying devotional activities.
• Raise butterflies. There are a variety of kits you can use for this, but I’ve had great success with the ones from Insect Lore. If you purchase their butterfly kit with caterpillars, you’ll get a habitat for your butterflies and a cup of caterpillars. About 2-3 weeks after they arrive, you’ll have butterflies! The first year we did this, our first butterfly emerged Easter morning and was such a beautiful visual of the resurrection. You could also start this activity on Easter Sunday as a way to celebrate and remember Jesus’s resurrection for several weeks.
  Note: Make sure your temperatures will be high enough to release your butterflies.
• Bury the Alleluia. Many congregations observe the practice of removing the alleluia from their worship during Lent, recognizing the solemnity of the season. A helpful way to include children in this is to have them decorate an alleluia banner or picture and then hide it as a visual representation that the alleluia has been removed. Then on Easter Sunday, the children can search for the alleluia, bringing it out as a sign of the celebration that comes with Jesus’ resurrection. Often the alleluia is buried at the beginning of Lent, but you can also hide it on Palm Sunday for children to find on Easter. Illustrated Ministry has a variety of alleluia coloring pages that are great for this activity.

If you are in a children’s ministry setting, these activities can be done as simple extras in addition to any of the sessions that you are doing throughout the Easter season. Or you can share this post with families to give them some ideas of how to celebrate the season at home.