Getting Ready for Easter

Besides teaching my own kids, I have the awesome privilege of teaching pre-k kids at church too! I've been busy planning Easter things for them and my own kids and thought I'd share some of what we will be doing.

Easter at Home:

During Christmas we read the book Humphrey's First Christmas. We fell in love with Humphrey after reading that book and I knew I needed to get Carol Heyer's new book, Humphrey's First Palm Sunday. In true Humphrey style, Humphrey wants something and he knows how to get it. He knows he's a true camel leader but just needs to convince his master. While traveling in Jerusalem, he spots a familiar blanket-- the one he gave to a tiny baby years ago. Could this man be the same tiny baby he saw years ago?

The illustrations in this book are excellent. Carol Heyer brings Humphrey's personality to life through the pictures in the book. I love the having another resource to share with my children about Palm Sunday.

We also have Benjamin's Box to read along with our set of Resurrection Eggs. Though this looks like a preschool book, I am not using it with my little ones. Rather, it will be a read-aloud w/ my older kids.

We are currently  reading Amon's Adventure. We are only 5 chapters into the book, but are loving it. It is broken up into chapters that have a little devotional at the end and is meant to be read during the Lenten season.

Songs:
I've also added some pre-k Easter songs on my iPad and playlist for church. Here's what I have lined up:

Theme Verse: Songs for Saplings 1 Cor. 15:3-4

"Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried and he rose again the third day according to the scriptures." 

You can find printables for 1Cor. 15:3-4 over at Totally Tots.

Now I couldn't find MP3 files to share and it seems like Miss Patty Cake's DVD's are hard to find, but if you can find them, she has some wonderful songs for toddlers and preschoolers. We will be using:

1. Shout Hosanna
2. Give me Five He's Alive
3. Hop to Praise You
4. Colors Numbers ABC's

All these songs focus on the Easter story. You can see a video preview over on her site: Miss Pattycake's Egg-Strava-Ganza.

Here are some additional songs:
He Saved Us from Rock the Word: Scripture Rock
Eternal Life from Seeds Family Worship

Church:

Now each of the kids in the preschool department at church will take home their very own set of special Easter story eggs. I totally got this idea from Motherhood on a Dime: Preschool Resurrection Eggs. Click over to her site to see what is inside each egg. I cut our cartons in half so that I didn't have to collect as many, but you can put them in a full carton and they'd spell EASTER instead of EAS/TER like mine :)

The younger elementary kids will also have their own set of eggs using Resurrection Egg printables from Bible Story Printables.

Other Easter Resources:
Resurrection Egg Printable from 1+1+1=1
12 Days of Easter from 2 Teaching Mommies
The Wordless Book Printables from Spell Outloud
All Play on Sunday has the cutest printable Easter book perfect for Preschool.

The Wordless Book for Easter

The Wordless Book is a wonderful way to teach children (and adults) the good news of Jesus Christ.

There are so many creative ways to share the story. We've done cakes, bracelets, booklets, gloves, found objects and more. I've gathered many ideas, links, and printables and presented them in a Squidoo article, The Wordless Book. I also added two new printable Wordless Books:

 Download Version 1

 Download Version 2

Please feel free to share these printables, but share the link to this post or the Wordless book article, not to the download. Thanks!

Directions:

1. Print the booklet out on paper.
2. Cut around the outside black border.
3. Fold in half length-wise (hot-dog fold)
4. Open paper back up and fold in half again (hamburger fold)
5. While still folded, cut on the dashed lines.
6. Open the page up again. Fold so that the page is going length-wise again. You will notice that the part you cute kind of forms a square. You will bring those ends in together so the edges meet.
7. Continue folding the pages so they are flat.

I hope this makes sense! I'll try to add visual steps soon.

For more Easter Ideas check out: