Stick "Horse" Donkey - Triumphal Entry Craft

Matthew 21
1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples,
2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me.
3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”

We needed a quick stick horse donkey prop this morning, so borrowing a stick horse idea from a Saddle and Spurs children's event we attended a couple of years ago, I found a donkey coloring sheet online. I used one from here, but any side view donkey would do.

I saved the picture to my computer, and then used the Paint program to crop away the body, and save a second image flipped horizontally.

I printed the two pictures for the girls to color and cut out...


...and while they were working I flattened, and stapled one end of a cardboard tube - the kind wrapping paper comes on.


After trimming the two donkey heads, so their edges matched up, we glued them together around the edges, except for the bottom, so we could slip the tube in, and then staple it in place, through the coloring sheets.


I reinforced the glued edges, with a staple here and there, and then added a piece of twine, tied around the neck, and taped in place to keep it from slipping down, so the colt could be tied up, ready for the two disciples to find and untie.


It's great to be a homeschooler.

The Backup Choir - Triumphal Entry Craft

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus,


"Teacher, rebuke your disciples!"


"I tell you," he replied,


"if they keep quiet,


the stones will cry out."


Luke 19:39-40 - with some inspiration from those '70s pet rock concerts.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Simple Easter Timeline Activity for Children

I'm hoping, this week, to be crafting through the "Holy Week" with the younger children. First though, I want to make sure they have the order of events clear in their minds.

So, today I have Joanne Larrison's The Week That Led to Easter, to read to them. It's another Arch Book (Amazon is running a buy-3-get-1-free on them, and I couldn't resist filling in our library a little).

This one summarizes the events from Matthew 21:1 - 28:10, Mark 11:1-16:8, Luke 19:29-24:12, and John 12:12-20:10, in an easy rhyming text, at about a third grade reading level, for children ages 5-9.



To go along with the story, I scanned some of the illustrations from the book, so I could trim and print them, as 3.5"x 5" cards ("laminated" with contact paper), for the children to put in order after we read the story, and in a thumbprint size, to glue right to our calendar, in timeline fashion.


If you want to do something similar, but without all the fuss of scanning and printing images, BibleStoryPrintables.com has a set of images depicting the events of Easter week, free and ready for printing.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Sunday Science - Resurrection Rolls

Our tradition each year, is to make a batch of Resurrection Cookies, on the night before Easter. We've been doing it for long enough the children are quite familiar with the process, and the results. But, up until this week, they had not seen Resurrection Rolls, a fact that worked to the advantage of my Science Sunday plans.


I called them into the kitchen for a "science" project, and gave them each a large marshmallow to dip into melted butter, and then roll cinnamon and sugar. I told them when people make Resurrection Rolls, the marshmallow represents Christ's body, and the butter and cinnamon mixture are for the oil and spices used to prepare the body for burial - they thought that was pretty gross.


We've blown up enough marshmallows in the microwave over the past few years, that I figured the children would have a pretty good idea of what was going to happen to the marshmallows, sealed inside of crescent rolls, in the oven.


In fact, if they take nothing else away from our years of homeschooling, I'm fairly certain they will at least remember, hot air expands - maybe even that it expands, because as the thermal energy increases, the molecules in the air vibrate faster and faster, causing them to bump into each other, and move apart, pushing against the sides of whatever container they are in.

And if, as in this case, the container happens to be a sugary marshmallow, softened by the heat of the oven, then the expanding air will push against, and expand it, until it bursts open, releasing the air, which goes bouncing and expanding on into open space, while the now empty marshmallow, deflates.

And if, all of this happens inside of a baking roll, the sides of the roll will push out, while they are still doughy, and then harden into place, thanks again to the heat of the oven, where they will remain, even after the marshmallow deflates, leaving a nice, hollow cavity inside the roll, resembling an empty tomb.


Since they already knew all of that, I ask them to take their knowledge, based on past scientific observations, and predict what might happen to a roll, not sealed as well...



...or to a roll sealed around an empty space, with no marshmallow...



...or to a marshmallow, not sealed into a roll.

They guessed spot on for the first two scenarios, but were little surprised at the crunchy, yummy, candy like substance the lone marshmallow became. Clearly, we have not yet performed enough sugar based experiments. I'll have to think of some way to rectify that.


Then, while the children snacked on the results of our research, most of which did resemble empty tombs, I read to them Byran Davis' The Story of the Empty Tomb from Arch Books, turning our science lesson back into the Bible lesson it was meant to be.

The story, retells the account from John chapter 20, in a fun to read, and nicely illustrated, rhyming text, typical of Arch Books.

The back note to parents suggests following up the story with "a special dinner or outing with the family, celebrating the new life that Jesus died to win for us." The Resurrection Rolls fit the bill pretty nicely.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Linked with this week's Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.

What My Child is Reading - Easter

I've already mentioned a number of Easter themed books, this week...



...and the crafts, or snacks we made to go along with them (just click the pictures to see our reviews, or craft instructions).



In addition to the stories above, we also enjoyed Liz Curtis Higgs' The Parable of the Lily again (we read it first a couple of years ago)...



...and C (age 5) lent me hand, literally, in making another bouquet of hand print Easter lilies to go along with the other items on table.


For the most part, we've been trying to stick with Easter stories, leading into the Easter season, that touch on the Biblical story, or at least, as in the case of the Little Critter book, involve church in some way.

But, we made an exception for Wende and Harry Devlin's Cranberry Easter. I've been a big fan of the Devlins since I was a child myself, and we are all very fond of their Cranberry holiday series of books.



We weren't disappointed by this story, either. A community egg hunt serves at the backdrop, with a bunny suited Mr. Wiskers presiding over the festivities, but the story is really about neighbors coming together like family, to care for each others needs. There are glimpses in the background of the illustrations, of a church, and very cross-like, ships' masts, that are pleasant, subtle, reminders of what is at the core of both the story, and Easter, alike.

Like all the books in the series, this one has a cranberry recipe at the back, this time for cranberry cobbler. The children and I were eager to give it a try, but it turns out there's not a cranberry - fresh, frozen, or canned, to be found in our town right now.

Instead, we made up a batch of Resurrection Rolls, to go along with a quick science lesson...


...and another story.


But, you'll have to come back for tomorrow's Science Sunday post to read more about that.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Linked with What My Child is Reading at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

Easter Suncatcher Craft - Golgotha

Cut two sets of construction paper borders and scenes, per child.


Stick one set to the sticky side of contact paper.


Cover with tissue paper.


Glue the second set over the contact paper, lined up with the first. This step is optional, but it makes the suncatcher look pretty from both sides.



Cover with contact paper - sticky side in.

Trim.

Tape it to a window.


It's great to be a homeschooler.