It’s often difficult for children to understand the true meaning of Easter. Lots of kids (mine included) think Easter is about the Easter bunny bringing treats to good boys and girls much like Santa does on Christmas Eve. But how do we talk to our kids about Christ’s death without putting a damper on their holiday? How do we convey to them that the real celebration of Easter is even better than egg hunts and Easter bunnies?

As a fairly new mom still dealing with lots of “firsts”, I did some research on the best ways to talk about such a heavy subject and here are some things that have worked for my kids:

1. Keep it simple. No need to go into the gory details with your young children. They know what it means to be wounded. Focus on the point that we are sinners and that separates us from God. But Jesus died so that we could be close to God again.
2. It’s OK to talk about death...but the focus should be on the resurrection. Death is natural. I personally think it’s important for kids to learn about death at an early age, but that goes hand in hand with eternal life through Jesus Christ. Don’t let your kids focus on the tears, but instead focus on the new life. From death comes new life.
3. Use fun activities or read age-appropriate stories to understand the miracle of Easter. There are all kinds of activities on Pinterest. Some of our favorites that we’ve done in the past are Resurrection Rolls and the Easter Garden. There are also some great books out there, like: Mary: Mother of Jesus, Jesus the Savior, and Jesus the Healer. Older kids can learn about Jesus’ sacrifice for us through allegories like C.S. Lewis’s The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Here’s a fun way to read the story of the first Easter.

I like to call it Unscrambling the Eggs. Cut out the strips of paper with parts of the Easter story from our FREE printable. Place one strip in each plastic egg. Hide the plastic eggs. Let your children find the eggs, and when they’ve found all #, they must open them and put the strips of paper in order to tell the Easter story. An added bonus is if you want to throw in some trinkets like cloth for wrapping Jesus’ body in cloth or bread crumbs for the Last Supper.