Resurrection Eggs and Printable Link!

Each year, we use the Resurrection Eggs to retell the Easter story.  These are sold in a carton, and inside each plastic egg is a symbol from the Easter story.  They aren't Catholic specifically, but can be found in any Christian book store (we got ours at Family Bookstore in Bellingham, WA).  We usually tie this lesson in with a Stations of the Cross coloring book, or one year purchased plastic eggs and made Stations of the Cross eggs in class.  We tell the story at circle time, and pass each egg around to each student as we tell the story.

This year, I found an awesome resource over at www.teachinghearts.net, another site that describes using the Resurrection Eggs in class.  Additionally, this site has an awesome FREE printable file folder game with flip open Resurrection eggs to make and take home.  Our plan is to use this activity along with the eggs, and save the Stations for another week during lent.

The Teaching Hearts printable was a bit complicated for our Kindergarten and First Graders, so we modified it slightly.  We only distributed the blank folding eggs, folders and the 12 symbol circles, plus the cover and explanation page to each student.  (We left out the fancy egg number covers and narratives for each egg).  We just had the kids number the eggs 1-12 and decorate them on their own, eliminating some of the cutting and gluing.

Ash Wednesday, Lent and Caterpillars

On the last Sunday of Ordinary Time before Ash Wednesday, we presented the topic of Lent and penance and preparation for Easter.

For our introductory activity while the kids arrived, we had them color a simple Ash Wednesday drawing, like the one found on Coloring Pages 101 .

We then went outside and watched an Eagle Scout burn last year's palms to prepare the ashes for Ash Wednesday.

When we returned to our classroom, we had our circle time, working on the Prayer at the Stations of the Cross (1st Grade Prayer to memorize in Seattle Archdiocese) and discussed Ash Wednesday and Lent.

We discussed the process that caterpillars go through to become butterflies.  We encouraged our students to think of ways they could prepare their hearts for Easter during Lent, such as giving up something, doing extra good deeds and adding prayer to their day to day routines.

For our craft project, we made caterpillars out of egg cartons.  For each child, we ripped out a section of three egg cups from old egg cartons, and gave each student two small pieces of pipe cleaner.  The students decorated the caterpillars with markers and inserted the pipe cleaners in the "head" by poking small holes with a pencil first, then inserting the pipe cleaners. 

This ended up being a successful project--easy enough for our preschoolers to complete, but fun enough to keep our 1st graders entertained as well.


Stations of the Cross Coloring Book

Each year, our Parish has the children lead the Stations of the Cross on the Friday before Holy Week begins.  As RE teachers, our task is to get the K-1 children ready to participate in the event by giving them an understanding of what is happening and teaching them the Stations of the Cross prayer (already one of the required prayers for our 1st graders, but typically the last one they get around to memorizing on their own).

I found a free printable Stations of the Cross coloring book several years ago on the Internet.  Despite my best efforts, I haven't found it again to link to this post today.  However, Catholic Mom does have a nice version that you can access here which is similar.  (BTW, if you see my pictures and know where I can find these, please leave the address in a comment- Thanks).

At the start of class, I wrote the Stations of the Cross prayer on the white board.  Each child was given one of the Stations to color-- we asked them to do their best as these would be on display for the class.  Depending on their age, their "best" varied, but we have kids from age 2 to age 7 that show up for our class, and we figure all of pictures are in fact beautiful in God's eyes!

After each child colored a Station, we glued it onto poster board, and cut it out, and attached a label hand printed on a cardstock flashcard (these were left over from something else--any cardstock would do).

For circle time, we read our class the story of Jesus's last day and his Resurrection.

at the end of class, we posted each station on the wall

We  then placed the stations around the classroom and selected one child to read the first part of the Stations of the Cross prayed.  We moved from Station to Station with the class, with the student that colored the picture holding it in the air as either they read out the narrative of the Station (or a teacher read it if they needed assistance depending on reading level).  Our "reader" read the first part of the stations prayer, the class responed where it starts..."because...".

We completed each Station this way, and were able to keep the children interested the entire time, I think due to their involvement in making and presenting the Stations to their classmates.

After we completed the Stations, we gave each child an entire coloring book with all the Stations to work on until their parents came, and to take home to either keep in a coloring book or make their own stations for the home. 

This was an easy lesson to plan, with a great impact for all younger children.

Empty Tomb Easter Centerpiece

My 6 year old's sample

Picture of Book Cover

During Lent this year, we worked on telling the Easter story and the story of the Stations of the Cross and Holy Week during most of our lessons.

Last week, I found a new book at the local Family Christian Bookstore in my area. It is called "Paper Plate Christian Crafts" by Maxine Kenny (link below)

Paper Plate Christian Crafts (Amazon)

We adapted one of the crafts, Jesus Arose, on pg. 111, for our classroom to create Easter centerpieces. These were fairly simple and fun to put together.

I purchased the "bare" Solo brand bowl-type of square plates from the store. For the empty tomb, we had the kids crumpled up 1 or 2 sheets of gray copy paper and make it into a cave type shape. I affixed these with hot glue for the kids. They then cut out a circle from gray cardstock for the rock that rolled away to reveal the empty tomb, and glued to the side of the cave with regular elmer's-type glue.

We used the shapes from the book (Angel, Tree and Mary Magdelene) and had the kids affix thes with elmer's glue (small tabs at the bottom bent backwards allowed them to stand. We then set up a table with all sorts of accessories (stuff we had around the house--craft moss, felt, craft rocks, etc.) and let the kids create their landscapes using more elmer's glue. We ended up with quite the assortment.

At the end of class, we had the kids retell the short story of what happened when the women (including Mary Magdelene) went to the tomb on Easter morning. My six-year old daughter's version is photographed here.

First Sunday of Lent- Bread and Stone

We found this lesson online and decided to use it as the basis of our first lesson in Lent.

http://www.silk.net/RelEd/011299plan.htm

It is called "Bread and Stones: Preparation for Penitential Celebration" on www.silk.net- Resources for Religous Educators. The suggested age was third grade and up, so we slightly modified the text as we were reading aloud the speaking parts to make sure the kids were following.

We followed the directions of the lesson, brining in a rock and a loaf of french bread. Following our pre-activity as the kids came in (a coloring sheet from www.catholicmom.com on Ash Wednesday, http://www.christiancoloring.com/cmpdf2006/ash_wednesday.pdf .

We started the lesson in our circle on the floor with our liturgical seasons mat, this time with the candle in the purple square, and discussed the new season of lent, moving from ordinary time, and preparing for Holy Week and Easter through our lenten activities.

We then used the reading from the Bread and Stones lesson plan, with my husband and I alternating the parts. The kids were able to follow along just fine, and having the props of the bread and stone really seemed to give them something to focus on while we were reading aloud.

After we were done with the reading, we discussed with the group which they would like to be like- bread or stone- during lent as in the lesson plan.

We then worked on a craft, which was heart cut out of a full sheet of red paper, with a rock on one side (gray paper cut into a rock shape by the kids) and bread on the other (brown paper cut into a loaf shape by the kids). We snacked on the french bread while they worked on the project.

As a final activity, we purchased enough mini popsicle sticks for each child to have 40. We had them color them purple with crayons, and then played a simple counting game....one child placed anywhere between 1-9 sticks in the center of the circle, the next child had to place the number of sticks to make a total of ten, which were then bundled with a rubber band. We continued until we had 4 bundles, or forty, and practiced counting by tens to get to forty, then discussed why we would have picked purple for our sticks (color of lent) and the number 40 (days in lent). Each kid went home with 40 sticks to play with their brothers and sisters...interesting this activity kept our five year old busy the rest of the day.