DIY Resurrection Eggs & Easter Story Book Printables

source: Mandi Ehman

One of my favorite ways to share the Easter story with my girls is through a set of Family Life Resurrection Eggs that my mom gave us when our oldest was just a toddler. This set has been well loved, and at this point it has quite a few broken eggs and missing parts, so this year I decided to make a brand new set!

If you’ve never seen resurrection eggs, they look like a simple set of plastic Easter eggs in various colors. But inside each egg is a symbol of the Easter story — a donkey for Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, a die to represent the soldiers casting lots for Jesus’ clothes, etc.

The beauty of the set is that kids get so excited to see what’s in each egg, and it’s truly an interactive and concrete way to talk about things that are hard for them to wrap their minds around otherwise.

What I really love is that although we really only do them together as a family around Easter, the girls will occasionally grab the set to play with during quiet time, and those symbols remind them of the story as they’re playing.

DIY Resurrection Eggs

source: Mandi Ehman

Making your own set is actually really simple, and it’s not too late to make one for Holy Week!

Supplies:

• 12 plastic eggs
• an egg carton (I bought a carton of marshmallow eggs and ate them to get mine!)
• a small leaf to represent a palm branch at Jesus’ triumphal entry
• 3 quarters to represent the 30 pieces of silver that Judas Iscariot received
• a thimble to represent a cup at the Last Supper
• a tiny piece of paper rolled into a scroll to represent Jesus’ prayer in the garden
• a piece of leather or thick fabric to represent the soldier’s whipping Jesus
• a tiny crown made from grass or a flower stem to represent the crown of thorns
• 2 nails to represent the nails and the cross
• a die to represent the soldier’s casting lots for Jesus’ clothes
• a toothpick with one end broken off to represent the spear piercing Jesus’ side
• a piece of cheesecloth or thin fabric to represent Joseph wrapping Jesus in clean linen cloth
• a rock to represent the stone rolled in front of the tomb
• number stickers, optional
• resurrection eggs cheat sheet

Directions:

Put one item in each egg, following the order on the cheat sheet. You’ll find accompanying Bible verses to help you tell the story, although I recommend paraphrasing for little ones!

Variations:

• Use stickers to number the eggs from 1 to 12 to keep them in order.
• Print the 8-egg cheat sheet to make a smaller set of eggs (eliminate the scroll, piece of leather, die and cheesecloth).

Easter Story Book

source: Mandi Ehman

A friend of mine has four daughters who are spaced just like our girls (although each of her girls is about 10 years older than ours). Their second daughter, Waverly, is a talented artist, and as I was working on this idea, I asked her if she would draw the 12 elements of our resurrection eggs so that I could make cards to correspond with the eggs.

I love how these cards turned out, and I’m so excited to share them with you!

Print the Easter story cards to use with the eggs or to tie together with a ribbon as a small book (an idea that Waverly’s youngest sister came up).

How do you share the Easter story with your kids?

	Mandi Ehman is the founder and publisher behind Life Your Way and the co-author of All in Good Time, as well as a wife and the homeschooling mom to four beautiful girls. She lives with her family on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia and loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.