Easter is one of my favorite holidays! Spring is usually in full-effect, warm weather is slowly arriving (at least in the south, where I’m from), and life is starting to feel fresh and new after the winter. Some of my best childhood memories are of picking new Easter dresses and dying colorful eggs with the windows open to let in the breeze. Shameless plug for visiting South Carolina in April! It truly is the perfect time of year.

This year I’m excited to celebrate Easter with my boys, especially now that my toddler is old enough to start understanding the real meaning of Easter. I love watching him pick-up on Bible stories and start to repeat them back to me! My husband and I are taking a very simplistic approach to the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Obviously the Bible contains some pretty heavy concepts that are difficult for little minds to understand. Earlier this year we looked for some fun, easy ways to hold his attention and make the stories of Easter stick in his memory.

We are looking forward to meeting the Easter bunny of course, and having an egg hunt with our friends and neighbors, but we really want to teach the truth to our kiddos starting now!

Here are a few simple ways we are teaching our toddler about the true story of Easter, and celebrating as a family:

Hands-on outings: One of our first beautiful days showed up last week, so we took the chance to visit a nearby farm with baby animals. We let our 2-year-old hold the bunnies and kittens, and talked to him about new life. He got to watch the farmers herding sheep and we reminded him about the story of the lost sheep (Luke 15:1-7). It was so fun to see the light-bulb moment on his face when he put the story together with what he was watching! Sometimes we underestimate how much he can comprehend, but a real-life example always helps.

 

 

Resurrection Eggs. If you’re following my social media accounts, you already saw this. 😉 My husband grew up with this tradition, and we are excited to pass it down! The concept is very simple, and allows for plenty of interaction. Letting a toddler touch, feel, open, close, hold, etc.. is the best way to keep his attention! The full story of Easter comes in a little book with bright illustrations to match the tokens inside each egg.

 

 

An easy children’s bible. We love this one, because the colors are vivid and the text on each page is short. If you have a little drama in you, it’s easy to read out loud and make each story interesting! My husband loves to use different voices for different people. It definitely keeps our toddler’s attention! The Easter story in this bible is very simple and told in a story format that makes it easy for kids to remember.

 

God Gave Us Easter. I shared this author in my Valentine’s Day toddler post too. She’s a favorite of ours! I actually had no idea she wrote an Easter book until I was doing some research. We are excited to add this one to our kids library. The story is sweet and the illustrations are beautiful!

 

Easter church events. Our local church has an amazing Easter service, and several other churches in the area host egg hunts and put on Easter plays. It’s the perfect time to scope out churches if you’ve never attended one, or if you are new to the area! You can see how they love on your kids, and get a feel for the community. Your toddlers will have a blast hunting eggs, since these big events usually allow the smallest children to go first before the older kids take over.

 

If you aren’t sure where to start your church search, there are great tools for you here and here!

Happy Easter!!