Family Easter Activity with DIY Resurrection Eggs + Free Printables!

Easter is right around the corner, and I wanted to share a really neat family Easter activity with DIY Resurrection Eggs that you can consider doing during mealtimes before Easter Sunday – it’s a twist on an activity my aunt planned for my cousins and me years ago to help us reflect on the resurrection story, and I still have such fond memories of it.

Before our candy Easter egg hunt one year, my aunt (also my Godmother) decided to shake things up a bit and do something a little differently. She read all of us kiddo cousins this book – Benjamin’s Box – and then told us there were special eggs hidden in the yard that we were all to go find.

We all hunted for those eggs in the yard – 12 of them – and then came back to all the adults where my aunt had us sit down and open the eggs one by one. Each of them contained something symbolic from the story she had just read, so as we opened the eggs, we looked to see what was hiding in there, and then we talked about what it represented. It was such a unique way to help us kiddos reflect on and better understand the story of the resurrection.

More than two decades later, this activity is still fresh on my mind. Clearly it made an impact if I still remember it!

When I was thinking about potential blog posts I wanted to prepare in anticipation of Easter, I was originally going to simply post the story of the activity my aunt organized and offer it as a suggestion for other families, especially since it was so meaningful for me as a child. However, when I started thinking about it, I realized I could put a spin on this and turn it into a family mealtime activity during the Easter season instead. It’d be something fun for families to do during mealtimes leading up to Easter Sunday.

Since I’m such a big believer in regular family mealtimes, and since I love creating resources like my Fun Family Dinners and Family Discipleship Dinners to help families connect around the table and have something special to look forward to on occasion, I thought I’d create a pre-Easter activity with a similar sentiment. Are you ready to hear about it?!

Family Dinnertime Activity During the Easter Season

Instead of reading Benjamin’s Box and going on a hunt for all 12 Resurrection Eggs on Easter Sunday, consider reading the book with your family a week or two before Easter, hide a Resurrection Egg each day in your kitchen/dining area for your kiddos to find before your family mealtime, and then when you sit down to eat, open the egg and talk about what’s inside – the symbolic item and the corresponding Scripture passage. I have a few variation ideas for this, as well as instructions on how to create the Resurrection Eggs below!

I’ve created these super cute printables that include a Scripture passage & discussion question that correspond with each egg that you can use to spark conversation at your dinner table. You can download them for free from my Resource Library!

Family Dinnertime Activity Variations:

1. Read Benjamin’s Box and then chat about the contents of one egg per day at your family mealtime until Easter (so you’d potentially start 11 days before Easter and do the last egg on Easter Sunday).
2. Read Benjamin’s Box about a week before Easter and then chat about the contents of 2-3 eggs per day.
3. Don’t read the book at all and just chat about the contents of the eggs.

I think hiding an egg and having your kiddos find it before you sit down to eat sounds pretty fun and a great way to get your kids excited about finding it, reading the Scripture inside, and talking about the symbolism of the egg as it relates to the resurrection story, but you certainly don’t have to do it that way. If you do hide an egg each day, depending on the number of kiddos you have and their ages, you could consider whether you wanted all your kids to hunt for it each day, or whether you have the kids take turns on different days looking for it. Totally up to you!

How to Make the DIY Resurrection Eggs

You can easily assemble these eggs on your own with materials you likely already have (or you can purchase the eggs online if you want to do this year after year and prefer to have something more permanent). Here’s a list of items if you’re wanting to make some of these yourself:

1. Piece of grass – represents palm branch
2. Coins
3. Grape and piece of bread
4. Little homemade booklet to look like a Bible (represents prayer)
5. Piece of twine or leather (represents whip)
6. Thorn
7. Nail
8. Dice
9. Toothpick (represents spear)
10. Piece of cloth
11. Rock
12. Empty

Then, print and cut out the Scriptures (again, you can find them for free here in Resource Library!) that correspond with each egg.

Fold up the papers with the Scripture and discussion question on them and put them in the appropriate egg.

That’s it! I think you and your kids would really enjoy this activity! I hope it helps you connect with each other and with Christ around your dinner tables this Easter season!

Get access to these Scripture printables & discussion questions in my Resource Library!