Our Easter Tree

I love lent.  I love it even more than Advent and Christmastime.  Although their are bunnies and chicks and the commercialism like anything, there is not near the hype or expectations of Christmas. 

Last year I learned about Resurrection Eggs and made a set for our family.  Basically, it's 12 items that tell the story of Jesus as he prepares for the cross up until his resurrection!
It's been quite fun this year as Mateo is a whole year older and can really understand the story at a new level.  I must say that he knows more about the bible at age 3 than I did as a teen. A child's zeal for the things of God really puts it all in perspective!  He does Awana at church and they memorize a bible verse every week.  Who knew a 3 year old could memorize scripture! Something about hiding God's word in your heart!  I pray often that all the head knowledge that he's been gleaning will soon become heart knowledge.  He is gettting it.

In addition to our Resurrection Eggs, I learned of the idea of an Easter Tree.  Last year, a friend posted about an idea that she found from a website about making an Easter Tree with small branches and I was intrigued.  The devotional was for adults, though, and I didn't care for the pictures they used.

So, to keep it simple and kid friendly I made simple picture ornaments to correspond with our resurrection eggs.
Last summer I found a small Easter Tree (who knew they even existed?!) at a garage sale for $1.00 so come Lent I was eager to make this project a reality.

It has become the centerpiece of our dinner table along with a couple of children's bibles and, of course, our set of Resurrection Eggs. 

I have been pleasantly surprised at how much Mateo has enjoyed reading the bible stories and hanging up the ornaments.  I had originally intended on doing this throughout the whole season of Lent, but it took me longer than I thought it would to find time to make the ornaments so we've been doing them just over the last couple of weeks.  For a 3 year old, a shortened Lent has been just fine :)

Here are the different ornaments we used based off our Resurrection Eggs.  You could use whatever ornaments you want to help tell the story and boost understanding. 

 1.  The donkey/ Triumphant entry

 2. Thirty Silver Coins/ Judas' Betrayal

3. Cup/ Last Supper

 4.  Garden of Gethsemane

 5. Whip














6. Crown of Thorns












7. The cross/ crucifixion












8.  Casting Lots / Dice

 9.  The spear











 

 10.  Linen Cloth/ Burial

 11.  The tomb/ Burial


 









    12.  The empty tomb/ Resurrection

For each ornament I just found pictures on google images and printed each twice so the ornaments would be double sided.  I then pasted them on construction paper, hole punched them, and added some yarn. To help my memory, I numbered each one and added the scripture reference.  I think it's valuable to bring out an "adult" bible sometimes to read the passages and Mateo also loves finding his Awana memory verses in my bible. Maybe in years to come this tradition will morph and change.  We'll do a fun Easter/Resurrection story project at our preschool co-op this coming week. 

We did one about every other day, though some days I couldn't resist the longing eyes of my almost 4 year old to do "just one more".  So we just finished with all of the ornaments today, though I'm sure we'll be doing the Resurrection Eggs every day until Easter.  I love hearing Mateo help me tell the story to the cross.  I love how he says "Jesus prayed in the Garden of Semany" haha.  I am thankful for the opportunity to help shepherd a child's heart.