We have started a new curriculum called “The Kitchen” and each week I will post the Take Home Sheet called the “The Kitchen Table”.
We believe that spiritual development happens in the home as well as in the church setting. We hope that the ideas in “The Kitchen Table” will help you engage as a family. It’s designed to help you connect with your child about the lesson they had the past week. Use all the ideas one night, or spread them out throughout the week. Enjoy!
Why are You Crying? Jesus’ resurrection is a time for celebrating … not crying. John 20:1-18
Snack
Ingredients
— can of biscuits — large marshmallows — 1 cup sugar — 1 T. cinnamon — 1 stick margarine, melted — spray cooking oil — cupcake baking pan — 2 cereal bowls
Your kids will love to help make this simple baked snack and love eating it even more! (And, it’s really inexpensive.)
Preheat the oven according to the can instructions. Lightly spray the cups of the cupcake baking pan with cooking oil. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together in a cereal bowl. Melt the margarine in a cereal bowl.
Flatten each biscuit as far as you can without tearing it. Coat one marshmallow in melted butter, then roll in the sugar-cinnamon mixture. Place the coated marshmallow in the center of one flattened biscuit. Bring the edges of the biscuit up around the marshmallow and pinch tightly to close. Coat this entire thing in melted butter, then roll it in the sugar-cinnamon mixture. Place in a cupcake cup with the pinched seam at the top. Continue until all the biscuits have been prepared. Bake the oven while they’re baking, though!)
Once you pull them out of the oven, immediately lift them out of the cupcake cups using 2 spoons. Be careful not to puncture them. While they are cooling a few minutes (and you MUST let them cool … very hot), talk about the following.
This yummy snack reminds me of Easter. Is there anything about it that reminds you of Easter? Jesus was wrapped in cloths and placed inside a grave. We wrapped the marshmallows up in the biscuits. What did the women find, though, when they came to put spices on Jesus’ body? He was gone! He wasn’t in the grave. Cut open one of the biscuits to find that the marshmallow is gone. Depending on how secure you pinch, the top may pop open during baking, so you can use that to say the grave was not closed when they came there.
Egg Hunt
Ingredients
— plastic eggs — slips of paper
Your house is a great place to have an egg hunt. Beforehand, write these questions on small pieces of paper and insert each one in a plastic egg. Add other eggs that have one small candy. Hide the eggs all over your house. You may want to indicate a certain color egg for each child and tell them they can only bring back eggs of their color. Shhh … don’t tell if you see any others. The kids will return to the kitchen table with their eggs. One at a time, open the eggs and read the questions. Ask the children to respond to the question before opening another egg.
Why do you think Mary was weeping?
What makes you cry?
How do you think you would have felt if you had found the grave empty that morning?
How do you think Mary felt on the way to the grave?
How do you think Mary felt on the way back from the grave?
Whose voice do you know, even with your eyes closed?
Why do you think Jesus said Mary’s name?
Do you think you might have done anything differently than Mary did?
Why is it so important that Jesus was no longer in the grave?
Science Experiment
Ingredients
— 4 uncooked eggs — egg carton — heavy book (at least 2 lbs.)
Place the eggs, pointy end down, in the egg carton and inform the kids that these are uncooked eggs, NOT boiled ones. Two eggs should be side-by-side one space in from the end of the carton, and the other two eggs should be side-by-side one space in from the other end of the carton. (A general rule is that the distance between the eggs should be about an inch less than the length of the book that you are using.) Let the kids experience the weight of the book. What do you think will happen if I put this book on top of these eggs? Now, gently place the book on top of the eggs. Did the eggs break? I sure thought those eggs would’ve been squished by that big book. But, they weren’t. Amazing! What is so amazing about Easter? Jesus did not stay dead. He was not “crushed” by Satan! We were surprised when the eggs weren’t ruined, and man, Satan must have been flabbergasted when his plan to crush Jesus in death backfired.
