Easter

Thanks to Alex Palmer for this assembly!

Resources Needed

- Book: The Tale of the Three Trees - a traditional tale retold by Angela Elwell Hunt and published by Lion.

- Chocolate Easter Egg

Part One

Read the book the Tale of the Three Trees. Summary of book:

Three trees dream of what they want to be. The first a treasure chest, second a strong ship and the third when people look at him they would think of God. However, the trees then get chopped down by a woodcutter. The first tree was made into a manger. The second, into a fishing boat and the third cut into beams. Many months went by but then one night the first tree ended up having a new born baby placed inside - holding the greatest treasure in the world (Jesus). The second tree was the fishing boat in which Jesus was in when he calmed the storm. And, the third, became the cross Jesus was nailed too. So every time people thought of the third tree they would think of Jesus.

Sing

Some sort of Easter song.

Part Two

(Have Easter Egg on display)

Start off by saying Easter always reminds me of one of my favourite things and that is chocolate. (Get some children from your class to read out these chocolate facts):

* Chocolate starts off as cocoa beans which comes from fruit a fruit grown on trees in hot countries.

* The seeds are dried in the sun and then sold to a chocolate factory which turns the seeds into chocolate.

* To make chocolate, the cocoa beans are crushed then sugar and milk are added in.

* People didn't start eating chocolate until about 400 years ago. Up until then people used to drink it.

* On average, we eat about 3 bars of chocolate each week.

* The first chocolate Easter Egg was made in 1873.

* On average, about 80 million eggs are sold in the UK. This means over 330 million pounds is spent on Easter chocolate.

* The largest Easter Egg ever made was just over 8 metres tall (Could have a child holding a 1m stick and saying it is 8 of these sticks).

* It took 26 people 525 hours to make the egg and they used 50,000 bars of chocolate.

Once the chocolate facts have been read out ask:

Have you ever thought about why we give Easter Eggs?

The Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans used to give eggs to their friends and families around Easter time as a sign of new life coming into the world. This is because Easter happens during Spring time when plants are beginning to grow and animals have their young. But why do we as Christians give chocolate eggs to one another?

(Return to the ending of the Three Trees book)

The story I read to you earlier ends with Jesus' cruxifiction. What happened next? Because Jesus was dead he was put into a tomb but 3 days later the resurrection happened. This means Jesus came back to life again. So, a long time ago, the egg became a reminder for Christians of the new life Jesus had when he came out of his tomb.

At this point smash the choclate egg and say the broken egg is a reminder of Jesus' body on the cross and from that new life came out of it (Or words to that affect)

End with:

So whenever you crack open a egg during the holidays see if you can remember why we are eating all of this lovely chocolate! Then a prayer.