Easter Resurrection Eggs

Gather six plastic Easter eggs and number them 1-6 with a permanent marker. Fill each one with the appropriate item(s) needed to tell the story:

1. a piece of bread
2. three silver coins (dimes)
3. thorns
4. cross (cut from cardboard)
5. rock
6. leave this one empty

Play Time: Hide the eggs in a designated area. (Hint: Use extra empty eggs labeled with #6, so that each child participating can find the same number of eggs.)

Story Time: Once the Resurrection Eggs have all been found, gather the children together so they can help you tell the story of Easter to the family.

Use the following simple wording as a guide while children open eggs one at a time. First ask the child who has the egg marked number one to open it and tell what’s inside. Then move on to the next number until all the eggs have been opened and the whole story has been told.

Jesus was eating dinner with his special friends one night. He loved them all, but he knew that one of them was going to do something bad that night.

Some bad men gave money to one of Jesus’ helpers to help them find Jesus so they could hurt him.

The bad men made fun of Jesus. They made a crown out of thorns that scratched his head. It hurt him; and they laughed at him.

Then they put Jesus on a cross where he died. His friends were very sad.

They put Jesus’ body in a cave called a tomb. Some soldiers put a huge rock in front of the cave.

The last egg is the most special. It’s empty because three days after Jesus died and his body was put in the tomb, the tomb was empty! Jesus came back to life because of God’s power.

An angel moved the rock and Jesus came out of the tomb. He saw his friends again before he went back to heaven to be with God.

Bible Time: Some older preschoolers might be interested in hearing the words from the Bible about each of the items in the eggs. These verses will help you share the scripture references:

• Bread — Matthew 26:26a: “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples ….”
• Coins — Matthew 26: 14-15: “Then one of the Twelve – the one called Judas Iscariot – went to the chief priests and asked, ‘What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?’ So they counted out for him thirty silver coins.”
• Thorns — Matthew 27:28-29: “They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ they said.”
• Cross — John 19: 17-18a: “Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). Here they crucified him ….”
• Rock — Matthew 27:59-60: “Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.”
• Empty — Matthew 28:6: “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.”