Lent + Easter

The Easter Story is central to the Christian faith, and one that we may 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

Shrove Tuesday: A pancake recipe, a poem and a reflection. Something for everyone in the family. (SUNZ)
​Ash Wednesday Liturgy (Flame Creative Ministry)
Ash Wednesday: explore this church tradition together as you consider how and why we say sorry. (SUNZ)

Lent

• Intergenerational Worship Services -(SUNZ)
• What is Lent all about? Restart Website have some great background information on lent
• Sharing Lent in a bag (Build Faith)
• Messy Church in Lent (Barnabas Churches)
• 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)
• Going4Growth website (Anglican children's ministry UK)
• Diocese of Winchester Lent Course (videos below)
• Lent Calendar (Auckland Diocese)​

Strandz Intergenerational Lenten Studies

 A Sent People

Our Transforming God

A Pilgrimage ​of Grace

Celebrating Easter in our Bubbles

Simple family devotions developed for home, as part of our Covid-19 response. 
No crazy props, 1 million pipe cleaners or 5 litres of glitter required.

Find out more!

Holy Week

Easter Ideas for families and at home

• Easter Bubbles (Strandz)

• Holy Week at Home (Church Juice)
• Easter - a journey (mainlyministries)

• Bringing home the mess - (Messy Church USA)
• God's Big Easter Story: A Holy Week Journey for Families​
• 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. 
• Bringing Home the Mess of Holy Week (Messy Church USA)

Intergenerational Ideas

• Create an Easter Wordle (SUNZ)
• Easter Trail with QR codes (Together at Home)
• Journey to Easter (SUNZ)
• An Easter Trail from Bible Society, using resources from 'The Super Cool Story of Jesus'

Easter Week Journey

• 'What's in the Bible' summarises what Holy week is all about, with explanations for each day. Includes colouring in sheets and info
• Holy Week Visual Aid with paper (Barnabas in Churches)
• A Lego journey through Holy Week (Build Faith)
• Our Strandz article in the Anglican Taonga magazine on Easter. (pages 28-29)
• The Sounds of Easter Week (Barnabas in Churches)
• Holy Ground (Diocese of Gloucester)

Stations of the Cross

• ​Stations of the Cross: Sensory Journey (St Michael's Kelburn)

Easter Sunday

• Emmaus Road Service ideas for Easter Sunday (Barnabas in Churches)
• Punctuation Marks Presentation (Barnabas in Churches)
• Easter Jam (Orange)

Crafts and Activities

• Holy Week Boxes (GodVenture)
• Mosaic Resource - A great preschool activity. Print and cut out shapes to tell the Easter story.
• Holy Week in a Box (Building Faith)

Preschool Activities
mainly music online sessions - Easter, All about direction

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

• ​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.
• 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

• Stations of the cross ideas for children on (Family Feast and Feria)
• Create an Easter Wordle (SUNZ)
• ​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 (pdf)
Cross Easter decoration

Media

We have moved our Lent and Easter Media section to another page, as there were so many videos!
We also have a selection of videos and resources on our YouTube Channel​

Lent & Easter Media