Making Easter Meaningful for Kids

Easter can often turn into more of a celebration of spring than a religious holiday, but for Christians the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection are the center of this observance. While all the decorated eggs and baby animals are cute and fun, there’s a deeper meaning behind the celebration of new life.

I’ve shared religious Easter activities for kids before, but I wanted to give you some more ideas if you’re looking for ways to make Easter more meaningful for kids.

I always love the idea of tying holidays to acts of service or kindness in the community, and Coffee and Carpool uses the Easter season to encourage her kids with kindness activities. The post includes some ideas you can use for acts of kindness, or you can come up with your own. For however many days before Easter as you want, you can make a paper chain and each link in the chain contains an idea for an act of kindness.

Some people take the reverse advent calendar idea and use it for Lent, or you can take time to clean the house as a family and find items you aren’t using that you can donate to others who might need them.

Using a symbol of the empty grave is a common way to teach kids about Easter (and there’s a crafty version in that Easter post linked above). This can be done with resurrection rolls (Yummy Healthy Easy has a super simple version made with crescent roll dough), or try this recipe from Around My Family Table for meringue resurrection cookies.

You can also use a tool like an Easter story egg to help tell the story of Easter to kids. And of course you can read books that touch on the religious aspects of the holiday. The True Meaning of Easter by Melissa Wingo follows a mouse through the Easter story and includes relevant Bible verses. And while it is more about Easter marking the coming of spring than it is about religion, Easter on the Farm by Phyllis Alsdurf includes a spread about going to church as part of their Easter activities. It also shares the tradition of the Easter tree made with spring branches, which some families decorate with sentiments about Jesus or things they are grateful for that God has provided.

Does your family have a special way of making Easter meaningful for kids? I’d love to hear about it!

Georgia is a state in the United States, of course, but Georgia is also the name of a country that was formerly part of the Soviet Union and now is considered part of Europe. Let’s learn more about the country of Georgia.

Georgia Basics

Georgia is situated on the Black Sea and bordered by Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is home to almost 4 million people, most of whom live in the capital, Tbilisi.

The country is 26,900 square miles, or 69,700 square kilometers.

People have lived in the area now known as Georgia since prehistoric times. It requested support from Russia to defend against hostile neighbors in the early 1800s, which led to Russia slowly annexing their land. Though they were briefly free after the Russian Revolution, the country was part of the Soviet Union until 1991. Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and still occupies regions of the country.

The word Georgia referring to the region was first seen on an Italian map in 1320, but there’s a lot of debate as to where the word came from.

The majority of people living in Georgia today are Georgians, and they speak Georgian, an indigenous language that is apparently unrelated to any other language family in the world. Most people there practice Georgian Orthodox Christianity.

Georgia is a representative democracy with a president and prime minister, as well as a parliament.

Georgia National Symbols

The Georgian flag has a white background with a large red cross and a smaller red cross in each quadrant made by the big cross. It’s also known as the Five Cross Flag and was a symbol of the Kingdom of Georgia that was repopularized in the late 20th century, though it didn’t become the official national flag until 2004.

The national anthem is “Tavisupleba” or “Freedom,” which was also approved in 2004. The music was adapted from two Georgian operas.

The coat of arms features a lion on each side of a shield with an image of St. George, with a crown above that. The ribbon includes the national motto, which, translated to English, is “Strength is in unity.”

St George is the patron saint of Georgia. (Check out crafts and activities for St. George’s Day.)

Georgia Learning Activities

Twinkl has more about the history of Georgia and facts about the country.

Learn about the giant head sculptures of Sno in this post form Atlas Obscura. They also have a good post about Prometheus Cave, which locals claim is where Prometheus was chained as punishment for stealing fire from the gods.

Check out the giant plane tree in Telavi, an ancient tree that stands 150 feet (or 46 meters) tall and is the largest tree in Georgia.

This one is for the parents, but you might want to learn more about the history of wine making in Georgia, which is considered the birthplace of wine making. Evidence of grapes and grape seeds in the region dates back to 6000 BCE.

Georgia is so proud of its wine making history the the famous Mother of Georgia statue in Tbilisi holds a sword in one hand and a cup of wine in the other.

Check out this tour of Tbilisi from a local.

It’s a little tricky to search for Georgia specific activities and get the nation, not the state, but this list from Teachers Pay Teachers is pretty good after the first one.

Khachapuri, a Georgian cheese bread, is a popular dish that kids should love. Try this recipe from the Kitchn.

Have you read?

Georgia Basics

Georgia National Symbols

Georgia Learning Activities

Leave a Reply