Holy Week in a box

I recently took over planning all of the Sunday School lessons for my church.  Of course the first month I’m taking over has Easter in it.  One of the biggest Sundays of the year for any church because of the number of visitors.  This means I now have about three different Easter Sunday School lessons I’ll be sharing.  This first one is a Palm Sunday craft to do leading up to Easter.

I knew for Palm Sunday I wanted to create a family devotional somewhat akin to the Easter devotionals I created before.  But it needed to be simpler because while I’m willing to spend 3-4 hours putting together materials for my class, I don’t know anyone else is willing to do that, and there’s a scale of time when you get into 50 kids or more.  So I wandered around Pinterest pinning ideas and found one I liked.  But, it wasn’t quite what I wanted and had a different emphasis than I wanted.

So being me, I modified it and came up with Easter in a box, a Palm Sunday craft even the non-crafty person can make.  It’s a simple way to talk about the meaning of Easter all week long with your family.  It could also make a great homeschool Bible lesson, so there is that as well.

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Supplies for Easter in a box

paper mache box* (I bought a bunch of them on sale at Hobby Lobby), peg doll*, aluminum foil*, red and green construction paper, scrap of white cloth, scissors*, and printable (on the subscriber page, SUBSCRIBE HERE)

How to make your Easter in a box craft

First, you have a couple of choices to make before you get going.

1. You can choose to decorate or not decorate your Jesus figure.  For my example, I did not decorate him, but I’m planning on painting one later to look like the Jesus illustrations in my Gospel lessons.
2. Now, you can choose to do this in two different ways.  First, you could choose to prepare the whole thing on Palm Sunday and just retell the little story on the appropriate day.  This is what my church is doing.  OR, the way I think works better if you’re doing this as part of your homeschool Bible lesson, do the craft on the appropriate day.

For Palm Sunday you’re going to take the green construction paper and cut it into the shape of a palm leaf.  Simple easy, and a great way to practice cutting skills where it’s not important.

Monday you are taking one of the squares of aluminum foil and crumpling it into a coin shape.  To go with the passage of Jesus clearing out the temple of the merchants.

Tuesday is a heart to talk about Jesus’ heart for the world.  It’s an interesting passage that I haven’t heard really talked about a lot.

Wednesday is another coin as a reminder of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus.

Thursday you draw a picture of a cup and bread on the lid of the box and talk about the Last Supper.

Friday is the crucifixion, and you draw a cross on the back of the box.  Because I couldn’t find my sharpies, I used acrylic paint instead.  I like how it turned out.  So if you are doing this project at home with your kids, I recommend using acrylic paint.  Obviously, you are NOT doing that at church.

Saturday Jesus is buried.  I know during the actual events of Holy Week Jesus was buried on Friday, but for our Palm Sunday craft, the reminder is happening on a different date.  For today you take the piece of cotton fabric and wrap Jesus up in it, and put Him in the box.

And Sunday the box is empty because Jesus wasn’t in the tomb on Easter morning.

It’s a simple devotional you can do with your family in only a few minutes a day.  I think it’ll be a popular Palm Sunday craft with the early elementary crowd, what do you think?

Get more Easter craft ideas

• Holy Week Devotional (when studying Old Testament)
• Holy Week Devotional (when studying New Testament)
• Memories of the Resurrection
• Preparing Your Heart for Easter
• Finding Easter in the Passover