Easter With Our Primary Kids

I've mentioned before that Bryan and I teach the 6 and 7 year-old class at church.  These kids are so sweet and smart and funny.  They impress me in so many ways.  But I always find I'm most impressed by how well they know the scriptures.

Today being Easter, our lesson was on the first Easter.  (I've included a wonderful video (above) of this story in case you're not familiar with it.)  It's a great lesson that outlines the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ and how it applies to us in our lives.  At the beginning of the lesson the manual suggests that teachers bring some secular symbols of Easter--eggs, bunnies, baskets, candy, etc.--and ask the kids if these things are what Easter is about.  Then it goes on to explain that, no, that's not what Easter is about.



The problem is, the kids in our class are way beyond that.  We brought some plastic Easter eggs in a basket and asked them if that was what Easter is all about.  They all said no and a few of them raised their hands.  We called on one little girl who said, "No, Easter is about Jesus Christ coming back alive so we can too after we die."

Uhh... yup.  You've got it.  No need for the rest of the lesson now.

We continued on with the rest of the lesson anyway (what else were we going to do for the next 25 minutes?), but we could have said "amen" right then and there and I think the kids would have left with the same amount of knowledge they came in with.

Another part of the lesson had us show several pictures depicting the sequence of things that happened leading up to Christ's resurrection.  The lesson didn't say to do this, but (since we had time to kill anyway) we laid all of the pictures out on the floor and asked the kids if they could put them in order.  Guess how many they put out of order.  Yup.  None.

Aside from a funny conversation about how Bryan's older brother who's going bald will get all of his hair back when he's resurrected, I'm not sure we presented a whole lot of new information to the kids in our little Sunday school class today.

But I don't think that matters.  I think what's important is that we all felt the Spirit as we talked about Christ and rejoiced in the knowledge that we'll live again after we die (and with all of our hair!).

To remind the kids what a happy holiday Easter is, each of them got to take home a couple of the plastic Easter eggs we brought.  Partly because we've been eating vegan lately, partly because we have kids in our class with food allergies, and partly because this just seemed more fitting to celebrate this joyful holiday, instead of candy each egg had several happy face stickers inside.

We usually have eight or nine kids in our class, but since only four came today, several eggs were left over, so each child got to take home two eggs.  Except for one little boy who asked to take home an extra one so he could share one each with his older brother and his younger sister.  This was such a sweet request that of course we let him take an extra egg.

I can't think of a better way to celebrate Easter than by sharing the happiness we feel with those around us.

Happy Easter!