An Intentional Easter and Easter Ideas

All of the Advent activities leading up to Christmas I wanted to do never happened.  The sleep deprived state we were in for October and November was beginning to improve  by the beginning of December, so I thought I might could get it all together.  While I didn't get to the activities that I hoped I would in December, I do a have list going from last year with ideas from Pinterest and other people's blogs of activities that I would love for our family to do, Lord willing, in the fall and leading up to Christmas.  So hopefully, now that I already have list going, I can, Lord willing, implement them at the right time this year.  Now that I'm reflecting back on the activities I want to do, I realize I want them to be so FULL of anticipation!   Anticipation for the birth of the One who would rescue us!  

So fast forward a few months and I thought I would like to research family activities and devotionals for Lent and I just didn't.  I wanted to spend time preparing our hearts for Easter.  I wanted us to spend time with Laurel focusing on Jesus' life and WHY He needed to die.  I want us to work with her on connecting the whole Bible as a story and that the whole Old Testament points to the Promised Rescuer, Jesus!

By clicking on the picture, you can read The Story!  Can't recommend it enough!


We also love The Jesus Storybook Bible for that very reason!

Well then I saw a bunch of activities for the two weeks leading up to Easter...and then the 12 days leading up to Easter, and I still hadn't sat down and narrowed down the  activities that would work best for Laurel and for our family this year.  I just dropped the ball!  I didn't want to just do something to do it and I didn't want to get so caught up in trying to make the activities with Laurel so cute and perfect that I would end up completely neglecting to really shepherd her and teach her why we do these things.  I wanted MY heart to be right.  I wanted OUR focus to be right.  So I ended up kind of mixing and matching from different sites based on time constraints and materials. 

Here is a list the Lent and Easter resources and blogs that had a great list of ideas.

This is an awesome post from one of my favorite websites, When You Rise.   They have lots of great ideas for activities to really enhance and go along with different Bible lessons and stories.  I saw that post right after I was thinking about how late I was in getting all of these things rolling.  I loved it when Desire wrote:

"I dropped the ball this Easter.  I had grand plans of doing a bunch of meaningful activities surrounding the true meaning of this season and it didn't happen.  I have lots of excuses, but the bottom line is, it's a week before Easter and until now I've been feeling 2 steps behind on life and had no plans nailed down.  I came up with a plan that mainly uses supplies I have on hand and takes little to no preparation to execute."

That was me to a tee.  I'm using some of their ideas during this week.
When You Rise also had this post today on an Easter memory verse and some Resurrection activities.

Ann Voskamp, author of _One Thousand Gifts_ has a great family activity for Easter...making a Grace garden.  I would love to do this next year, but I was totally out of time this year.  My friend Rachael did this activity with her family this year and has a great post here on what it looked like for their family.   I love how Rachael writes:
                 "I tell our children (and myself) often that
                  We are the people of Easter.
                 We are.
                 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that
                 if Christ isn't resurrected,
                we've wasted our lives.
                our faith is useless.
                Easter changes everything."

Ann Voskamp also has a free Easter devotional book

2 Teaching Mommies has great activities and lessons to do the 12 days to Easter.  Obviously we're past the 12 day mark, but it's such a great resource and it can go along with lessons from The Jesus Storybook Bible which I like.

Impress Your Kids  had a great series of 10 activities called A Sense of the Resurrection that incorporates our 5 senses! 

Here is a great Easter countdown that focuses on who Jesus is.  Laurel and I are a lot of these activities.  We've been loving it!

Prayer of Hannah has an awesome list of Easter resources and ideas.

ABC Jesus Loves Me is a wonderful site for free preschool curriculum.  Here is their page on Easter activities ranging from crafts to books to dvds to treats.  Lots of ideas here! They have Miss Patty Cake's Eggstravaganza on their list.  We LOVE Miss Patty Cake DVDs and this one is a great one for Easter.

I found this post today on Christ-centered Easter ideas for families.

Women Living Well has a post on making your own Resurrection eggs.

And for Bible reading during this week, here is a chronology of events of Passion Week.
Here is also a visual timeline for Holy Week

And of course you can't forget about that activities that appeal to the taste buds!
Cross cupcakes
Resurrection Rolls
Easter Story Cookies
Empty Tomb Treats  

I also should mention that I thought Courtney from Women Living Well had a great post today with some words of encouragement and caution as we're seeking to keep Easter Christ-centered and making this a great day for our families.

Congratulations if you have made it this far!  I wanted to have a list all in one place to refer back to for myself but I also wanted to list out what I had found in case anyone is looking for ideas!  What other great ideas have you found?