Tell your kids the Easter story with this simple idea

In late March of 2020, as the world descended into lockdown, I found myself at home with three young children navigating a new world of online learning. At that point in time, my eldest child was in year 2, my second had been at school for all of seven weeks and my third child was almost three and had just started preschool. Suddenly we found ourselves, like so many across the world, confined to our home and experiencing the wider world entirely through screens. 

I felt very isolated from my ‘village’ of extended family and my church community, and yet simultaneously connected through social media to a vast network of parents and carers who were all in the same boat. At first, lockdown was a novelty, as the whole world responded in real time to the first pandemic of the internet age. Every day I would come across new creative ideas on social media for entertaining kids in lockdown.

However, the novelty very soon wore off as the daily reality set in. Our family struggled a lot with online learning. I knew from my own experience working as a teacher and from seeing how my own children learned that young children learn best through concrete experiences. So it was frustrating for me to sit at the dining table with laptops and iPads, trying to translate the digital worksheets sent home by well-meaning teachers into meaningful learning experiences. I also felt the sadness of my children—unable to play with their friends or sit on their grandparents’ laps for a cuddle and a story. Video calls and livestreams are wonderful technological innovations, but no replacement for being together, especially for kids.

As Easter approached, I wanted to create a resource for our playgroup families that could be done without screens or any special resources. And so my Easter Story Basket was born! It’s a simple retelling of the first Easter in language that is accessible to small children, using simple materials that can easily be found in just about every home: a basket, soap, bread, a leaf, two sticks, a pebble, some spices from the pantry, and an empty box. Using these items as props, a parent can tell their child the Easter story: from Jesus washing his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper, where he broke bread and ate with his friends, to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed, to the cross, the tomb and his burial, to his friends bringing spices to the tomb on Sunday morning, to the discovery of the empty tomb and Jesus’ resurrection. The props also serve as memory hooks for children so that they can  then retell the story themselves, even if they cannot read. 

I brushed off my drawing skills to draw the pictures, and arranged them onto a single page, which I scanned and uploaded to our church playgroup’s Facebook page. I also printed out copies for each of our church families and dropped them off in their letterboxes, together with a couple of simple Easter crafts. My kids and I enjoyed being able to wave at our friends as we drove around our neighbourhood delivering Easter activity packs.

I was astonished at the response to my simple little idea. It went viral—spreading across Sydney, then Australia and even overseas. I heard of churches in the UK using the idea and there was even a translation into Spanish, as some missionary friends used the resource with church groups in Bolivia and Mexico. It was wonderful to hear these stories of families empowered to tell the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection in language that is accessible to even the youngest hearers, and in parts of the world where access to resources for teaching the Bible is much more limited. I think it was the right thing at the right time as we faced an Easter in lockdown— apart from our extended networks and watching church online. We were craving connection and tangible experiences of our faith. 

Oral storytelling is one of the oldest forms of human connection; our brains are wired for stories. At a moment in history when we were all forced apart from each other, it felt exciting to see  families across the world using my Easter basket idea to tell and retell the ancient story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. It was a moment of connection with friends I was unable to see in person as we told this story to our families, using the same simple props, and shared photos on social media. And then we shared the joy of seeing our children using those props to tell the story for themselves. 

The first time I did this activity with my own children, all three of them jumped up as soon as I was finished to find supplies for their own little Easter baskets. They rummaged in the bathroom for bars of soap, raided my pantry for the spices, emptied out the recycling bin looking for empty boxes, and practiced making cross shapes with sticks.

A few weeks ago I brought it out again at our church playgroup in the park. I found a pretty little gift box to use for the final part of the story. It was delightful to see the children's eyes light up as they guess what could be in the box before the big reveal. Small children always love the surprise of the empty box, especially when retelling the story to their parents, as if the resurrection of Jesus is a delightful secret they have just discovered. And this I think is the real power of this little Easter Basket idea: that it equips even very young children to tell the good news to those around them.

I pray that this Easter, through the Easter Story Basket, many more children and families can hear the good news that Jesus died and rose again because of God’s great love for us.

---

Edwina Blowes serves in pastoral ministry alongside her husband in southwest Sydney. Between parenting five busy children, serving in their church playgroup ministry and working part time as an art teacher, she has more ideas for creative projects than time in which to finish them.

For more articles from Growing Faith, subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter.
To hear about the latest books and resources from Youthworks Media, subscribe here.