Lent + Easter

The Easter Story is central to the Christian faith, and one that we can find difficult to navigate with children. Lent is the season of preparation for Easter and lasts for 40 days, beginning with Ash Wednesday and ending on Holy Saturday - the day before Easter Sunday.

Here are some ideas to help you journey through lent, reflect on the events of the crucifixion, while celebrating the joy and wonder of the resurrection.

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday Liturgy from Flame Creative Ministry

Lent

What is Lent all about? Restart Website have some great background information on lent
Sharing Lent in a bag
Messy Church in Lent
40 Acts: Do Lent Generously - 40 days of giving back, doing good and living generously.
Flame Creative have made booklet to help families engage with Lent.
Burying the Alleluia and a Lenten pathway - All Saints Howick (pdf).
Going4Growth website (Anglican children's ministry UK) has some good ideas and links
Diocese of Winchester Lent Course (videos below)
Caritas Lent resources with ideas for highlighting social justice. They also have a great Keep It Simple Calendar 2019
Auckland Diocese have put together an online Lent Calendar
A Labyrinth for Lent

Strandz Intergenerational Lenten Studies

A Sent People

Our Transforming God

A Pilgrimage of Grace

Lockdown resource

Celebrating Easter in our Bubbles

Simple family devotions for COVID-19 lockdown
No crazy props, 1 million pipe cleaners or 5 litres of glitter required.

Find out more!

Holy Week

Easter Week Journey

*New* Easter Trail - Together at Home
Holy Week Boxes
'What's in the Bible' summarises what Holy week is all about, with explanations for each day. Includes colouring in sheets and info
Our friends in the Children and Families team at SUNZ have put together a whole host of Easter resources on their blog, including a 'Journey to Easter' with reflections on the journey Jesus made to the cross.
The Faithful Families website outlines a great way to get the whole family engaged in the journey of Easter week - includes daily stations/symbols, and questions to ask your kids each day.
Footsteps to the Feast for Holy Week
The Sounds of Easter Week
Walking through Holy Week
Holy Week Visual Aid with paper
Easter Story Animations from the Bible Society Aus - animations for both school and church settings
A Lego journey through Holy Week
Illustrations from Henri Martin
An Easter Trail from Bible Society, using resources from 'The Super Cool Story of Jesus'
Our Strandz article in the Anglican Taonga magazine on Easter. (pages 28-29)
Mosaic Resource - A great preschool activity. Print and cut out shapes to tell the Easter story.
Bringing Home the Mess of Holy Week - Messy Church USA
Holy Ground - Diocese of Gloucester
Holy Week in a Box (Building Faith)
God's Big Easter Story: A Holy Week Journey for Families

Mainly music
Online sessions - Easter, All about direction

Godly Play

Holy Week in Lockdown

Strandz Easter Bubbles
Holy Week at Home (Church Juice)
Stations of the Cross: Sensory Journey - Lockdown edition (pdf) - adapted from Diocese of Gloucester by the Parish of Kelburn.

Easter Sunday

Emmaus Road Service ideas for Easter Sunday
Punctuation Marks Presentation
Easter Jam - Orange

Maundy Thursday

Story: Jesus shares some kai with friends, Mark 14:12-26
You can also read today’s story Jesus Storybook Bible, The Servant King and A dark night in the garden, p.286 - 301

More ideas

Bible Society colouring sheet

Footwashing story and presentation

Good Friday

One Friday - images, illustrations and videos
Stations of the cross painting by Jenny Hawke here
Wrapping the Cross - a Good Friday Service
A Good Friday Service for all
An All Age service from BRF for Good Friday - traditionally a sombre and difficult service to include kids at.
Presentation on Good Friday/Easter through noughts and crosses
Reinacting four scenes of Good Friday in a family service
A creative all-age Good Friday service for families to engage with
A short talk using 3 props: a wash bowl, sponge and dice
A stunningly illustrated video from Grace Vineyard retelling the story of Good Friday, told by children in Christchurch.

Stations of the Cross

One Friday - images, illustrations and videos
Stations of the cross ideas for children on Family Feast and Feria website
Samuel Marsden School in Wellington have put together a Stations of the Cross resource which contains readings (docx file) and images (ppt file)
Prayer station ideas for each Station of the Cross
Illustrated Children's Ministry Stations of the cross - colouring posters and a devotional.
A great resource with simple images for each station - suitable for all ages by The Kennedy Adventures
Stations of the Cross video - narrated by children, from the Episcopal Diocese of Texas.
Full Size Stations of the Cross Coloring Pages
Stations of the Cross Worksheets

"This is a very sad story. It is about the one day in Jesus' life, so it's not the whole story about Jesus. Even though the story has a happy ending, it is important to remember what happened on that day"
Stations of the Cross, Episcopal Church of Texas

Make

Craft and Activities

Printable figures and scenes by My Little House - a very popular resource for Christmas! (we had over 33k views of our link to their nativity on Facebook)
Easter Crafts and more ideas here

Resurrection Eggs

Using symbols to unpack the Easter story - a creative way to engage children of all ages. Symbols could include a leaf, donkey, small cup, coins, thorn, fabric, nail, dice, cross, stone, and the last one is empty.
Other symbols and instructions can be found here
You can simplify the eggs for preschoolers, like this one here

Make an Easter Garden
Our friends at St Stephens Tamahere put together some great instructions for making an Easter Garden. Download it here (pdf)

Old Rugged Cross
This beautiful Easter decoration will help you and your family remember Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection