Dear parents,
A big thank you on behalf of Mrs Solakova, Mrs O’Connor, Mrs Reid, Mrs McConnell and myself for the generous Easter gifts we received at the end of term. We are blessed to have such a kind and thoughtful school community.
I hope you are all enjoying the break and looking forward to celebrating Easter over the coming days.
Good Friday is nearly upon us and I thought I would share some ideas to help your child understand the meaning of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
Now is a chance for you to reflect on your child’s Lenten Promise. You may wish to encourage your child to make a special effort for the last few days. It is a time to grow more like Jesus; in goodness, kindness, helpfulness and loving.
Explain to your child that Good Friday is a special day; when Jesus dies on the cross. This is a sad day but part of God’s plan; he came into our lives and showed us the path to follow. Without Good Friday we wouldn’t have Easter Sunday, a happy day.
You may wish to challenge your child to make a cross. In my experience, children come up with some very creative ideas, I am often presented with crosses made from Lego, sticks, boxes etc.
Enjoy hot cross buns and explain to your child about the cross on the bun. We held our own hot cross bun party just before the end of term.
If you haven’t already done this, look at your child’s Bible and read the Easter story. Here is a video version which may help:
As we all know, Easter Sunday is the resurrection day when Jesus comes alive. The Holy Week thus ends with the celebration of Easter Sunday. The children made ‘He has Risen’ Easter cards to share with you on this special day. Have a look in your child’s book bag if your child has forgotten to give the card to you.
Below are some ideas for Easter activities:
Easter Activities
- I am sure you will all be enjoying delicious chocolate eggs! We explain the symbolism of the egg and new life to the children by telling them it’s like the egg is the tomb; break open the egg just like Jesus when he breaks out the tomb.
- Make a paper mache egg.
- Mix up a proportion of flour and water to a gluey consistency. If you have PVA glue this is good to add too.
- Blow up a balloon or use some other egg shape object.
- Dip strips of newspaper into your mixture and cover the egg.
- Leave to dry and decorate.
- Find stories of the people who saw Jesus in those first few days.
- Make an Easter garden. Again, go with your child’s creative ideas. It could be made out of Lego, recycled materials, grass cuttings, leaves, twigs etc. This will also be useful to support your child when we start learning about Pentecost upon our return to school. As you will see in the second photo, we made our own Easter garden in school to help the children learn the Easter story.
- I am sure you will all be thinking about fashioning some form of an Easter Egg Hunt. This could be either in your home or outside. Possible clues your child could read using their knowledge of phonics (tricky words to learn by sight are in bold):
- Under the mat.
- Next look on top of a bed.
- Go to the peg box.
- Look in the pots and pans.
- On top of a hat.
- In a mug.
- Look in your coat.
- Meet Dad by the shed.
- Perhaps you could number the eggs. Tell your child how many eggs they need to find. A great problem solving activity eg. ‘So we’ve found numbers 2, 6 and 9. What other numbers do we need to find?’
Lastly, I hope you have been able to access Church services online www.rcdow.org.uk. If you are able to watch an Easter Service talk to your child about the Church colours. In class we talked about purple being is the colour of Lent, preparing for Easter. Now it’s white and gold!
Wishing your all a wonderful Easter celebration.
Nicola Palmer