On Good Friday last year, Lydia and I took a round baking dish outside and filled it with dirt…we were making a mini-garden. Then we found rocks, sticks, plants, moss and leaves to cover and plant in our new garden. The final piece was a giant potato. Yup, like from Idaho. We chopped the bottom off and carved out a little hole in the middle. We placed it cut-end down and suddenly, it wasn’t any garden. It was the tomb and garden where Jesus was buried.
Lydia was so proud of our garden. I was impressed at how beautiful it was. A great reminder of what Jesus did for us–but also a pretty decoration for our Resurrection Sunday celebration.
By Good Friday evening, the leaves started to look a little dingy. By Saturday night? They were looking downright pitiful. That night before Lydia went to bed we looked at our garden again and talked about how Jesus’ friends must have been feeling. Thinking back to when we made our garden–it seemed like a long time ago! This whole time Jesus had been dead and his friends were so sad–and scared and confused.
After Lydia went to bed, I ran to the grocery store and bought a $5 bouquet of flowers. I did a little doctoring to her garden…
I loved the waiting we did from Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday.
I loved the gorgeous picture of LIFE and beauty the flowers gave us.
I want my kids to know and understand what Jesus did for them on the cross. I want Easter to be as big and as exciting and (dare I say?) magical as Christmas. This is just one way we’ve decided to help impress the greatest gift and miracle onto our children.
We’ve done this surprise Resurrection Garden for several years now and although my children know what’s going to happen, they get excited to wake up and see how their gardens have been transformed. Even in the April showers, my kids want to make sure their gardens are ready…
My son now likes to gather his Playmobils for guard duty…
But those guys never make it on Sunday morning…
See how fun a Resurrection Garden can be? It’s more than a decoration, it’s an Easter morning tradition that can captivate kids of all ages!
Here’s a few more fun ideas from other folks around the blogosphere…
lamb photo by essjay, text by me
Love how you added the flowers! We did a resurrection garden last year – but I think I’ll have to copy your idea of sprucing it up on Sunday morning!
What a wonderful idea!
That’s such a clever and relatively easy idea! I’ve got some things scheduled this week that I’ll have to come back and post here.
What a sweet idea! You may have stumbled on a whole new marketing campaign for those Idaho potatoes! 🙂
SO glad that you linked this up over at (in)courage! Thanks so much for joining in!
love love love this idea! I’m doing this for sure. Did you link the resurrection rolls last year? The ones with the marshmallow inside. I really want to do those with my girls. I can’t remember where the link is. Can you help?
Kate: I replied to your comment earlier so not sure if this is a duplicate. But yes, I did do resurrection rolls last year.
http://ohamanda.com/good-fridayeaster-food-craft/
That reminds me: I need to link all my old posts up there!
Great idea! My daughter will have so much fun with this! She loves to make things and play in the garden so this is like two in one!
What a great idea!!
What a sweet idea. Fun but centered and I like the linky so I can check out more. Thanks!
Thanks for the heads up friend! Although, many of the ideas in my post were from you 🙂 We love Impress Your Kids!
What a lovely way to remember Easter! We loved our summer garden last year. Must do that again.
This week’s show I share 4 different perspectives about Easter from mothers. They tell Easter in their own words.
Easter without the bunny is a struggle for some and easier for others. Thanks for sharing your ideas.
We don’t celebrate “Easter” at all. We celebrate Resurrection Day. I love your activity/centerpiece idea. Very pretty!
I love the garden idea! Very cool! Thanks!!
LOVE LOVE LOVE THESE!!!!!
Thanks for sharing!!!!
We’re so blessed to be able to share ideas so easily. I appreciate everyone’s inspiration! Here’s the link to what we’re doing, with the pinnacle being gifts in the empty tomb rather than a bunny basket.
I love this! Your garden is beautiful. I have linked to this idea in my new post about keeping Easter about the real message. Thank you!
I love the garden revival idea! and enjoyed your easter basket idea as well…
Off to check out some of the many links here – I don’t think we’ll be missing the bunny at all!
This is a great idea!! I’m going to use it when my son gets old enough to understand Easter. He’s only 15 months now and is less than concerned about anything that does not have to do with playing outside.
My mom used to do Resurrection cookies(Also another idea i’m saving for my little man) with me and my brothers when we were younnger. They’re a great way to help kids realize th etrue easter meaning. I could go on and on about them, but I’ll just post the link and let you see for yourself. (There’s also a great link for grandparents who want to do resurrection cookies too)
http://annieshomepage.com/resurrectioncookies.html
So there’s the link, I hope you enjoy it! I love all of your ideas!!!
Thank you, Jennifer! I have seen those resurrection cookies but haven’t done them yet! Thanks for the link!
Love the garden idea!
On Facebook, I saw this great idea: a dad would make a papier mache pinata, sort of tomb-like. On Friday the kids would stuff it with candy and a representative of Jesus (small plastic doll), on Sunday morning, the pinata would be broken apart and the candy and “Jesus” hidden around the house. The person who found the “Jesus” got to read the Easter story aloud to everyone.
How creative! I love when people do fun stuff to make stories come alive!
I love this one! Nora & I will do this we she gets off the bus today!
This is beautiful! I have so much to look forward to as my daughter gets older! Thanks for all the great ideas’
Hi Amanda,
My two children (girls) and I have been very blessed and inspired by your blog (activities/crafts/ideas).:) Thank you so much! I was wondering if you had a series of crafts/activities leading up to Easter in the similar fashion as you created for Christmas in your “Truth in Tinsel” ebook.
thanks again,
Helene
Helene: I don’t. After Truth in the Tinsel I thought/prayed about it but I just couldn’t get my mind/heart around anything so quickly. The reason I loved Truth in the Tinsel (and it worked so well for others) is that I’d done it 3 or 4 times w/my own kids. I didn’t feel right about writing something I hadn’t really done w/my own kids.
However, I am going to be doing a few days worth of countdown activities w/my kids before Easter (I’ll start a few days before so y’all can follow along!) and of course, I’m scouting through all our past posts and others that were linked here.
Thank you so much for your kind words! Maybe 2013 will be the year of Truth in the Tinsel: The Easter Edition! 😉
a
We have made the Easter Garden for a few yrs. A little different then yours. We make a tomb out of modling clay. We use succulent/jade plants…. we love it.
We do the resurrection rolls too, with the marshmellows inside. This yr I am taking colored eggs and putting random things we are thankful for… and the kids open them each day and read them outloud.
I love Easter!
Love how you added color. Yesterday I found some butterly gummies and thought about adding them on Easter Sunday.
Grace…
Love it! I’ve seen so many cool Resurrection Gardens around the internet lately. So cool!
I love Easter, too! 😉
a
I love your resurrection Garden!!! I will make one for sure this year. I found out about yout link up through mu friend Elisa, and I just posted about it in my blog:http://familiacatolica-org.blogspot.com/2012/03/tienes-ideas-para-celebrar-pascua-en.html
Thank you!!
Thank you so much, Xhonane!
a
I love your resurrection garden and links to so many great ideas! I’m including it in my “Top 10 Easter Ideas” @ http://www.cheapcraftymama.com today! Feel free to stop by and grab a button!
Thanks Kate! 🙂
Great Top Ten list!
a
Great Idea! We need to start asking ourselves why we do what we do. Why do the bunny thing at all. We do have a choice. I had a thought years ago is it okay to eat a torture device made out of chocolate?? It is the same thing as eating a chocolate whip or electric chair???
Love the Easter Garden….Featuring this on my blog today: http://estherscardcreations.blogspot.com/2012/03/easter-fun.html
I love your cute resurrection garden. I have posted it among my favorites on my blog. Thanks for sharing it. You have a great site!
Thanks Amanda! Did this today with my 3 yo non-crafty boy and he LOVED digging in the dirt and finding rocks and we had a REAL conversation about Jesus and the garden where he prayed, the tomb where he was buried, and the fact that on Easter he won’t be there anymore! He did add on to the activity by wrapping a toy man in tissue to bury as part of our Resurrection Garden.
Thanks for your great idea!
Anne! How fun! My kids wanted to put a little man in the tomb, too! So glad yall had fun. 🙂
Thanks a bunch for sharing this with all of us you really know what you are talking about!
Bookmarked. Please also visit my site =).
We could have a link exchange arrangement between us!
I love this idea! I used to make Easter gardens when I was a kid, but not with the added addition of beautiful flowers on Easter Sunday morning – what a lovely surprise! My kids are 4 and 2 so I’m hoping to attempt a garden with them for the first time this year.
For Lent, we’re doing this to encourage our family prayer life: http://desertmum1.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/lent-prayer-tree-creative-prayer-for-families/
Thanks for the link!
We do a scavenger hunt. The clues are Bible verses. (“Thy word is a lamp into my feet…” would mean to look by a lamp, and so on) When I first did it, I wrote the verses out, but now that my kids are a little older, I’ll give just the reference and make them look up the verses. The “prize” for the hunt is an empty egg that represents the empty tomb.
I wasn’t sure if my boys would enjoy it when I first started doing it, but I didn’t do it last year and I ruined their Easter because I didn’t. So I’m definitely doing it again this year!
I love this, Amanda! Especially the idea of replacing the wilted foliage with vibrant flowers on Easter morning. Such a great idea! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I love it so much that I included your idea in my roundup of 7 Ways to Teach Kids About Easter.
Thanks again for sharing!
Leslie Ann
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We did our first meaningful Resurrection Sunday last year. When I say meaningful I mean that with purpose to teach our children about Jesus. We did a 14 looking forward to resurrection. We used the the Jesus Storybook Bible and read a story a day from creation to Christ. We did a road to resurrection poster as the kids are small and wanted them to have a visual. The best part was having a real sedar meal. All the parallels to discuss and every food had a meaning. Resurrection morning we had resurrection rolls for breakfast, are leftovers from the sedar which was great not cooking all day, and we just enjoyed the Holy day in rest!