What is the story of Easter for kids, told from a Christian worldview? Here you’ll learn how to teach the facts and history of the holiday.
The Story of Easter for Kids – a Christian Worldview
Easter, if you look around you, is all about the Easter Bunny, candy, and baskets filled with surprises, right? No, not really. The holiday is arguably the most important holiday in the Christian family, and it’s because it’s all about the death and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
In our homeschool, the Easter bunny visits my house briefly to leave some eggs in the yard, but we also spend the week leading up to Easter talking about Jesus Christ and his resurrection, and our salvation story. If you do too, then here is some information that will help you focus on the true meaning of Easter with your kids, with only minor mention of the Easter bunny. It’s what I teach my own kids, and I think you’ll like it too.
What is Easter? For Kids
- Easter is all about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
- The holiday is the foundation of the Christian faith, as it establishes Jesus Christ as the son of God, and gives believers hope and power over sin, and the promise of eternal salvation.
- It is a holiday to commemorate Jesus’ resurrection, which occurred on the third day after he was crucified by the Roman government at Calvary in 30 AD.
- Easter always falls on a Sunday, sometime between March 22nd and April 25th. Its date is determined by an ancient lunisolar calendar.
- Many Christians fast, pray and repent during the 40 days leading up to Easter Sunday. This period of time is called, Lent.
- Easter is sometimes known as Pascha, which means Passover, and is linked to the Jewish holiday of the Passover. That’s because, during his last days, Jesus participated in the Jewish Passover feast with his disciples. The Passover celebrates the Jewish people’s escape from slavery in Egypt.
- Traditional customs at Easter time include sunrise services at churches, celebratory events, and symbolic traditions such as decorating Easter eggs (a symbol of the empty tomb).
- The week leading up to Easter Sunday is called Holy Week and includes Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday.
- Symbols of Easter today include the cross, the color purple, colorfully decorated eggs, and the Easter Lily. Secular symbols include the Easter bunny, chicks, and Easter baskets.
- The traditional story of the Easter Bunny who leaves colorful Easter eggs for good little children on Easter morning first originated in Germany and came over with the German immigrants in the 1700’s. The children would create nests with sticks for the Easter bunny to leave their eggs in. These were the first “Easter egg hunts” in America.
- Common foods associate with Easter are chocolate eggs and bunnies, jelly beans, pretzels, marshmallow Peeps, and are carried in Easter baskets, shaped to look like “nests” for the treats.
Easter Holiday Fact Sheets
I have been working on a printable holiday fact sheet series I have going on over at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. As I come out with new ones each month, I’m offering them FREE for a limited time. Here’s my Easter homeschool copywork printable! I hope you enjoy it.
This fact sheet will serve as an easy and quick reference sheet for homeschool families to introduce the basic facts about the various U.S. Holidays. Use them for copywork or notebooking or to introduce prior knowledge about the Easter holiday before a project or lesson. Soon, they’ll all be in one huge download for you, too! Follow my store for the announcement – yes I’ll start it out as a FREEBIE, as always.
This is a work in progress. As I create them one at a time, they will be free for a limited time. My goal is to have them published a week or two before each occasion so that homeschool families can use them as a quick briefing of the holiday coming up. If you wish, you can “follow” me on Teachers Pay Teachers so that you will not miss when I publish them.
This resource can also be used for notebooking, lapbooking, copywork, Reading comprehension, or as a basic tool for research. Eventually, after I’ve created a page for each holiday, I plan to publish them in one large download for your convenience. Watch my TPT store for that.
You can see all my printable fact sheets for holidays and seasonal events at the TPT store.
Just click the image below to lead to this resource. (If you reach this page after the free promotion has ended, I do apologize. However, my prices are very reasonable for the amount of time put into creating these, I hope you wouldn’t mind paying for the download and supporting my homeschooling family.)
Try these Homeschool Easter Unit Study Ideas!
