Easter Egg Toss Game

(Matthew 21-28) Holy Week events &
(Matthew 28:6) He is risen!

Here's another idea that bloomed from Pinterest! The original idea came from Mammabeefromthehive.blogspot.com.au , but I made a change or two to make it into an educational game.

How To Play:

I added an element to the traditional toss game to make it educational by filling sixteen easter eggs with one question each. 


Each child, in turn, will pick an egg from the basket, open it, read the question aloud, then answer the question. If they get the answer correct, they get to toss their egg into the cups. If it lands in a purple cup, they get a treat (jelly bean, piece of chocolate, etc.) If it misses the cups or lands in a clear cup, no treat. If they get the answer wrong, they return the egg (with the question still inside) to the basket for someone else to pick. [Note: they do not get to toss the egg if they get the answer wrong. This sounds a little harsh, right? Well, not really, because we will have just reviewed all the answers in detail while making our Holy Week Bookmarks (see post below). When we are going to play a game, I always tell the kids to pay close attention to the lesson because they will have to answer questions during the game. This makes them extra alert! :) I make it very clear what questions may be asked during game play, so the kids are well prepared by the time we get to the game.] After all the questions have been answered, everyone gets to toss empty eggs until they tire of it.

Materials:

I am sure lots of different materials would work for this. I scouted around my house and used what I already had on hand. Feel free to do the same. I love it when I can recycle items AND I don't have to go to the store!

1 Foam core board
34 Clear plastic cups
X-acto knife
Scissors (or paper cutter)
Ruler
Cylinder (soup cans, empty Pringles can, wrapping paper roll, 2 more of the clear plastic cups, or anything that can serve as legs)
Basket
Plastic Easter eggs
Questions & Answers (download here) 
Approximately 6 pieces of purple construction paper (purple because that is the liturgical color of Easter)
Optional: circle cutter

How to build:

1) Line up the cups 5 columns by 7 rows. 

2) Measure the area at the bottom of the cups. 

3) Cut the foam core big enough for all the cups to fit on.

4) Hot glue the cups to the foam core. I wasn't sure if the hot glue would make the cups melt or not. I'm happy to report, it didn't. The hot glue worked beautifully.

5) Cut the cylinder to the desired height. 

6) If using a cardboard cylinder, cut one end at an angle to hold the core at an angle. If using something like cans that cannot be cut, just hot glue the edge that touches the board. There is no need to make this thing super strong. The cups weigh next to nothing and there will not be any pressure put on the board. The only purpose of the legs is to tilt the board at an angle.

7) Hot glue the legs to the underside at the top end only. The bottom end will rest directly on the floor. Exact placement doesn't matter as long as it isn't wobbly. 

8) Cut eleven strips of purple construction paper to fit inside the eleven cups that form a cross. I also added circles to the bottom of the cups because I like the way it looks better. The circles are completely optional, though. It would be fine either way.

9) Print and cut out each question. Place one question in each egg. Place eggs in the basket. NOTE: My questions are about the days of Holy Week. Of course, any questions would work just as well. I typically have 7 to 10 children in my class any given week, so 16 questions were plenty. If your class is larger, you may want more. If you need question ideas, send me an email, and I'll be happy to help.

That's it. Very easy. Very fast. Once I decided on the materials, it only took about 30 minutes to build the game board and another 5 or 10 to prepare the eggs.


Happy Easter! 


~~~~~Update: 
Oh, what fun we had today! The kids loved this game! And I have to say, making the bookmarks before playing the game worked out perfectly. By the end of the game, everyone had a great understanding of the order the Holy Week events and were excited to take their bookmarks home so they could refer to it each day during the upcoming Holy Week. 


The kids were not ready to go home when their parents came to pick them up. Don't you just love it when that happens?!

I am very careful to not take pictures of children for the blog for privacy & safety issues, so sometimes my pictures do not adequately reflect the excitement we experience in class. This is definitely one of those times.



NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!

Holy Week Bookmark

Matthew 21-28

Two and a half weeks till Easter, but only one more Sunday school class. Hmmmm...how am I going to pack so much material into one lesson? Well, certainly, I can't. Holy Week alone could be eight different lessons. Although my lesson plan this week focuses on events that happened prior to Holy Week, it just seems wrong to completely ignore such a significant time (the most important event on the Christian calendar) just because we will not actually have class that week.

When I was a child, Holy Week meant very little to me. I heard the adults talking about various events, but I couldn't absorb it for the growing anticipation of Easter. There was only so much my young brain could focus on, and sadly, the Easter basket weighed heavily in my thoughts. Everything else skipped across my consciousness like a stone across a pond. 

One of my goals as a Sunday school teacher is to help children see the chronology of biblical events. I especially would like them to have a deeper understanding of Holy Week. 

My third and fourth graders have a good grasp of The Last Supper and of Jesus being crucified, but what about the other events leading up to all that? They know Judas betrayed Jesus at some point, but when I briefly talked to them a few weeks ago about this, I saw blank stares when I referred to Judas as a spy. "A spy? Why is he a spy?" they asked. Often, I think we use the same language over and over to describe something (e.g., Judas betrayed Jesus), and the children get used to hearing it, perhaps can even regurgitate it back to us, but they don't always understand what we are saying. After I explained the Judas-spy relationship, I began wondering how much of the whole Holy Week concept do they really get? Individual events? Mostly, I'd guess, with a few blurry details (e.g., Judas was a spy). What other details are unclear? Do they understand how these events are related? Do they see the chain of events in order? I feel I should spend some time discussing Holy Week as if it were a movie, in today's kid-friendly language, so they can see exactly how each event led to the next, rather than studying eight individual incidents thereby disconnecting their relationship somewhat. And that is how the Holy Week Bookmark idea came about. 

As we glue each day onto the bookmark, I will retell the story in a movie-style format. Hopefully, open discussions will occur, so any unclear points may be addressed. Then, they will have this nifty little bookmark to refer to from now on to help them remember the relationship and order of the Holy Week events. 

On to the craft....

Now, I won't lie to you--the method I used for the bookmark was time consuming. But, don't fret, I am going to tell you how to do it more efficiently! :) First, let me explain why I did this the hard way. I mentioned that I am trying to pack a lot into this lesson, right? Well, I had already decided to make the Easter Egg Toss Game above. I think the kids are going to love that game, so I didn't want to scratch that idea to replace it with the bookmarks. Ideally, I would spread these two things out over two class periods, doing the bookmark one week, and the Easter Egg Toss Game the next week; but, since I don't have that option this year, and I'm determined to do them both, I had to do most of the work on the bookmarks myself.

So...here's how to make the bookmarks the hard way (and the easier way is in parenthesis):

Materials:

Paper Cutter
Card Stock
Fine Point Sharpie
Paint Swatches
Glue Sticks or any child-safe adhesive

Optional: Ziplock baggies for organizing chips

At Home Before Prep:

1) Cut out each paint color into squares. Our bookmark will cover eight days--from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday. I could not find paint chips with eight colors already on one card, plus I thought the kids might enjoy mixing their own color combinations, so I decided to individually cut out the colors. This took much longer than I expected. (To make this fast and easy, use the paint cards with several colors on a card and let the kids glue together as many cards as they need to make eight days. Depending on the number of colors on the chips you find, they may not even need to cut any off.)

2) Next, using the paper cutter, cut out a bookmark for each child. The actual size will be determined by the size of your paint chips. Be sure to lay out eight color chips in a row to get an accurate measurement leaving extra space along the side/top to write "Holy Week" as a header if desired. I cut my bookmarks 8" x 1 3/4".

3) Because we will be pressed for time in class, I wrote on all the chips myself beforehand. This was a last minute decision or else I would have printed the info. on clear label sheets and cut to fit. That would have given a much cleaner appearance. (But preferably, if time allows, the kids could do all the writing themselves, and if larger chips are used, they could also draw a palm leaf on Palm Sunday, a fig tree on Holy Tuesday, etc.)

Class Instructions:

1) As you talk about each day, give the Holy Day name(s) (some have several), what happened on that day, and any other tidbit info. you like about the day. Have the kids glue that day onto the card while you are talking. Start with Palm Sunday and have them place it snuggly at the bottom left corner of the card (if orienting your cards as I did). Then as you go in order of the week explaining, it will be easy for them to line up each day squarely. (If you are using the paint strips straight from the store without cutting, glue them onto the card stock until you have eight colors in a row. The kids can write the day of the week and draw a picture for that day while you are talking about that day.)

2) Lastly, have them write "Holy Week" across the side/top of the card.


In an attempt to make this project as streamline as possible, I put each day in a separate snack-sized baggie. I will simply hand out each baggie with the instructions, "Take one, pass it down," as I'm talking about that particular day.

After we finish the bookmarks, we will move right into the Easter Egg Toss Game. And how great is this...? The bookmark activity will be the perfect review for the questions we will use in the Easter Egg Toss Game, so the kids should not have any problems answering the questions! 




~~~~~Update: 
What a great class. Please also read my update at the bottom of the East Egg Toss Game post above. The extra time I spent preparing this craft was well worth it. I'll do the Holy Week Bookmarks and the Easter Egg Toss Game, perhaps every year from now on, just like I did it this year (both in one day).

NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!

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