Over the years I’ve used many tools and books to help teach my children (and Sunday School children) about the resurrection of Jesus and how it is the crux of God’s love story for us. Here are some of the Easter resources  for families I’ve used and highly recommend:

Resurrection Resources:

During Christmas we read the book Humphrey’s First Christmas. We fell in love with Humphrey after reading that book and I knew I needed to get Carol Heyer’s second book, Humphrey’s First Palm Sunday. In true Humphrey style, Humphrey wants something and he knows how to get it. He knows he’s a true camel leader but just needs to convince his master. While traveling in Jerusalem, he spots a familiar blanket– the one he gave to a tiny baby years ago. Could this man be the same tiny baby he saw years ago?

The illustrations in this book are excellent. Carol Heyer brings Humphrey’s personality to life through the pictures in the book. I love the having another resource to share with my children about Palm Sunday.

This is a new (2014) family study by OhAmanda. Our family has loved using Truth in the Tinsel and are looking forward to using this new study, A Sense of the Resurrection.

12 simple activities to be done the few weeks before Easter will turn your home into a memorial to Jesus’ death and resurrection.  You’ll experience Jesus’ anointing, the Last Supper, Peter’s denial, the cross, the empty tomb and more. Memories will be made as your family uses their five senses to understand and believe the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

This simple eBook includes printables, Scriptures and specific conversation and starting points so you and your kids can get a sense of the resurrection.

We also have Benjamin’s Box to read along with our set of Resurrection Eggs. Though this looks like a preschool book, I am not using it with my little ones. Rather, it will be a read-aloud w/ my elementary kids.

We own all the books by Arnold Ytreeide.  Amon’s Adventure is the book that talks about Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is broken up into chapters that have a little devotional at the end and is meant to be read during the Lenten season. This makes a gret family read-aloud (though some parts might be disturbing to very young children.)

Songs:
I’ve also added some pre-k Easter songs on my iPad and playlist for church. Here’s what I have lined up:

Theme Verse: Songs for Saplings 1 Cor. 15:3-4

You can find printables for 1Cor. 15:3-4 over at Totally Tots.

Now I couldn’t find MP3 files to share and it seems like Miss Patty Cake’s DVD’s are hard to find, but if you can find them, she has some wonderful songs for toddlers and preschoolers. We will be using:

1. Shout Hosanna
2. Give me Five He’s Alive
3. Hop to Praise You
4. Colors Numbers ABC’s

All these songs focus on the Easter story. 

Here are some additional songs:
He Saved Us from Rock the Word: Scripture Rock
Eternal Life from Seeds Family Worship

Resurrection Crafts:

Now each of the kids in the preschool department at church will take home their very own set of special Easter story eggs. I totally got this idea from Motherhood on a Dime: Preschool Resurrection Eggs. Click over to her site to see what is inside each egg. I cut our cartons in half so that I didn’t have to collect as many, but you can put them in a full carton and they’d spell EASTER instead of EAS/TER like mine 🙂

The younger elementary kids will also have their own set of eggs using Resurrection Egg printables from Bible Story Printables.

My friend Jolanthe from Homeschool Creations created this beautiful Resurrection Garden. Be sure to click on over for step-by-step directions on how to create this wonderful visual aide.

Resurrection Rolls — yes, the picture above was our attempt one year. Here’s the funny story to go along with the unPinworthy picture:

First of all, our Resurrection rolls did not turn out all pretty like the ones on Pinterest. I guess we don’t have the right touch yet–lol. Second, my nephew cracks me up! We made these yesterday while he was over and this is the conversation he had with his dad last night:
As my brother was putting my nephew to bed, my brother prayed and said, “Thank you for dying.”
my nephew said, “what?”
and my brother said, “You know, it’s Easter. What happened to Jesus today?”.
And my nephew said, “We cooked him. We put spices on him and cooked him.” lol!

Lamb of God Craft uses basic materials from around your home!
Other Free Easter Resources:
Resurrection Egg Printable from 1+1+1=1
12 Days of Easter from 2 Teaching Mommies
The Wordless Book Printables from Spell Outloud
All Play on Sunday has the cutest printable Easter book perfect for Preschool.
Legend of the Easter Egg Lapbook
Easter Resurrection Pack from 3 Dinosaurs — over 65 pages!
Free Printable Easter Poster (goes along with the Easter egg craft above)

See My Easter Pinterest board for even more ideas!