An Easter garden is more than just a pretty centre piece for your Easter lunch, it is a way to help teach children about Jesus and how he died for us and rose into Heaven.

For your own garden you will need:

• A tray
• Soil
• Grass seeds or moss
• Small stones
• A large stone
• A piece of small white cloth
• A small flower pot
• 6 sticks to make into 3 crosses
• String

Instructions:

1. Place your flower pot on its side on the tray (this will be tomb) and cover half the tray (including over the side of the flower pot) with soil, this will make a hill side.  On the other half put your small stones.
2. If you are doing this with over week before Easter you could always plant some grass seeds in the soil and watch them grown.  If like us you don’t have that long find some moss that is growing on a wall and peel it off to cover the soil area.  We also dug up some pansies that were growing between some paving stones in the garden to add some colour to our garden.
3. With your sticks use them to make three crosses and secure them with bits of string. Stick them into the top of the “hill”, if you have one cross that is bigger than the others, place it in the centre of the three crosses to represent the cross which Jesus was crucified on.
4. Finally with the piece of white cloth, fold it up and put it in the tomb and place the large stone in front of the entrance to the tomb.  On Easter Sunday roll the stone away to show that Jesus has risen.

Even if you aren’t religious this is a simple activity to do to teach children about different cultures and religions.

Here is a link to a youtube video showing you how it can be done: