Day 20: Easter Kickoff, Making a Resurrection Set

Day 20: Easter Kickoff, Making a Resurrection Set

We started our daily Easter activities yesterday by painting and coloring a few decorations for the window, but hit it in earnest starting today!

We started by assembling mini-books (link at end of post) which tell the Easter story in age-appropriate terms and length. The littles are familiar with the story, as we made a resurrection set with toilet paper rolls for putting on puppet shows a couple weeks ago (link below).

We made the books, read the story, and started to get out materials for painting a resurrection printable. Little Lady was looking for glue sticks in the odds and ends craft drawer, and ran across some raw wooden peg people I was saving for “something special”…she purposed them immediately! Running over to the craft boxes, she pulled out her resurrection set and paper dolls box…

“Hey- look- we can make Jesus and all the guys (characters) for Easter!”

I went with it, pushing aside the activity I had planned, and let her lead. I had work to do today, which I did off and on while facilitating and supervising her project, using about 25% of the table- the other 75% was all bits and bobbles and creating.

BEST idea: I am not exaggerating when I say that she spent the WHOLE DAY on this: she started at about 10 a.m. and we glued the last bean on the tomb at about 5 p.m. Of course she took breaks for bathroom, to color in another book, to ride a tractor toy around, to watch an episode of Dragon Tales, etc., but she would come right back and pick up where she left off.

I have to emphasize that this was “little-led:” I asked questions, helped with the grown up things, and redirected at times, but this is all based on her ideas…which makes it a million times more meaningful than if I would have proposed the idea and led her through it myself. Example:

Me: “What should we do with the first peg person?”

Her: “Make it Jesus when He rose again, when he went up to Heaven.”

Me: “What do we do first?”

Her: “He needs clothes- hold on…(she pulls out an Easter book, finds a picture of the Risen Christ, and points at it) look, He has a blue robe and a purple thing (sash). Here…(she rifles around in the paper dolls box, coming up with a piece of blue felt and a purple ribbon bit). Here they are!”

Me: “Now what? (I let her fumble around with the scissors to cut out an appropriately sized & shaped felt piece for the robe- she glued it on with a glue stick, which didn’t work very well. She asked for a different kind of glue, which I supplied. I helped glue the sash). What’s next while Jesus’s clothes dry?”

Her: “Now we make the Marys. I need the paints to paint their dresses.”

You get the idea…I helped her select materials only after she asked for them- didn’t push, didn’t prod- let her sift through things to find appropriate materials. I did explain that gluing real grass on the tomb area wouldn’t work very well, which went over like a ton of bricks. I offered my idea that I didn’t think Jesus needed a crown, but when she rolled her eyes and patiently told me that He was “THE KING” and didn’t I know that kings wear crowns, we went with that too. We also couldn’t find anything suitable for the rock to close the tomb, so we are still on the hunt for a large rock…but this is what we came up with for now, which I think is pretty cool.

Also impressive, to me at least: when she showed it to almost-three-year-old Little Man, I asked if he knew who each of the characters was, he immediately pointed at each, calling them: “Jesus, two angels, two soldiers, and the two ladies.” He also identified the tomb as “the tomb.” Neat, Little Mister.

It’s such a happy little feeling in my heart to watch them go about the business of learning about God in a way that seems so natural, engaging, exciting, meaningful, and fun: lots of store bought toys sat around un-played-with, lots of TV droned on un-watched at my house today…yay!

Resurrection Story Mini-book from Bible Story Printables at http://www.biblestoryprintables.com/files/Easter/BSPMinibookEaster.pdf

Resurrection Set with toilet paper rolls from Catholic Icing (even though we are Lutheran) http://catholicicing.com/2011/04/religious-easter-craft-for-kids-make/