Kick-off to Easter

With the death of my grandmother, our visit to MIL's, and just the plain fact that I haven't put the effort toward planning lately we have not done much homeschooling in the recent weeks. That is all changing now! I was going to start our Easter unit with The Parable of the Lily, but it never arrived at our local Christian bookstore after over two weeks of waiting, so I've ordered it online elsewhere else, and it should arrive by the week's end. However, we are doing some Easter learning this week using The Legend of the Easter Egg. Thanks to Candace's post on Easter/Lent Activities I decided to jump in for an Easter unit.

Last week I introduced Rebekah to the Resurrection Eggs. I had always wanted to get these when Rebekah grew old enough for them, and this is the perfect year to begin. We used them in conjunction with Benjamin's Box. Rebekah was so fascinated by each egg. She loved opening each one to find a little surprise inside. Although the book uses fictional characters to tell the story of Easter it puts it on a child's level and helps them to relate to the story through a little boy who might have lived and watched Jesus ride in to Bethlehem, teach people, eat the Passover meal, pray at the Garden of Gethsemane, and suffer the beatings and the cross, but then discover that Jesus had risen.

Following the story I have shown the kids "Miss PattyCake's Egg-strava-ganza". Both Rebekah and Joshua love this video! Joshua even participates, clapping with Miss PattyCake and the children. That really says something since not many videos capture his attention for lengthy periods of time. Rebekah thoroughly enjoys the video as well, and it reinforces the meaning of the items found in the Resurrection Eggs.

Today we focused on the Passover in our homeschooling time. I read about Palm Sunday (Rebekah had just learned about it last week and on Sunday in AWANA Cubbies) and the Passover in Rebekah's Bible story book. We discussed the wine and the bread and what they represented. Rebekah then had a communion snack of saltines and grape juice. She then did her communion page for her lapbook and wrote what each item represented.

Following this we went through the Resurrection Eggs and Benjamin's Box. I think the novelty is starting to wear off a bit, but Joshua wanted to play with the eggs as well, so this distracted Rebekah from really listening to the story. I had already planned to take a break from the eggs until the end of the week, so hopefully she will be eager to enjoy them again after not using them for a few days.

After watching Miss PattyCake's video Rebekah colored her memory verse pocket and we practiced her Cubbies verse for this week: "He will save His people from their sins." Matthew 1:21

I am really excited about this Easter unit! I have so much planned for the next two weeks. I wouldn't normally do something every day since Rebekah has preschool two days each week, but with Easter fast approaching I want to cover everything. I'll be sure to share daily what we are doing to learn about the true meaning of Easter.