The Road to Easter With Holy Week Countdown Cards

Holy Week starts on Sunday, and we’ve done a variety of activities over the years to focus our attention on the significance of Jesus’ death and Resurrection. We’ve often done a Easter countdown over twelve days with the Resurrection Eggs, but I decided to go a different route this year. While we’re still doing some familiar activities, I also wanted to do something new with my boys that would correspond specifically with the eight days of Holy Week.

I was inspired by two separate ideas I came across and decided to fuse them together to create a Road to Easter Countdown using a set of Holy Week cards I made on Canva. Make sure to read to the end of this post to download these cards for FREE!

The idea is to fill eight bags with items related to Holy Week, open one bag per day, and then add the prop from the bag to the wooden road. If you have a young child, they also might enjoy using a wooden figure to “move Jesus” down the road each day to show you’re getting closer and closer to Easter.

There are certain days of Holy Week like Palm Sunday and Good Friday that are widely known, but other days that are rarely discussed. It’s not a cookie-cutter week with only one event happening per day, but I decided to highlight the more commonly talked about events for the less known days. The point is that I want my children to understand the events leading up to Resurrection Sunday because those details matter.

Supplies:

• Holy Week Countdown Cards (see below!)
• 8 paper lunch bags
• small clothespins
• Items to fill bags (see below)
• piece of wood
• wooden figure for Jesus

Holy Week Events

1. Sunday – Palm Sunday (palm branch)
2. Monday – Cleansing the temple (sponge)
3. Tuesday – Teaching (scroll)
4. Wednesday – Anointing (perfume jar)
5. Thursday – Maundy Thursday/Last Supper (cup & cracker)
6. Friday – Good Friday/Crucifixion (cross)
7. Saturday – Burial (stone)
8. Sunday – Resurrection (white cloth or white flower)

dirrections

1. Print out the Holy Week Countdown Cards and cut them out. There is a set of 8 days of the week cards (for the outside of the bags) and a set of 8 corresponding event cards (for the inside of the bags). p.s. If you have a corner rounder, that will come in handy.
2. Gather your Holy Week items. For each day, place the item and corresponding event card in the paper bag. Fold the bag and attach the corresponding day of the week card with a small clothespin. You will have 8 bags in total, one for each day of Holy Week.
3. Pick a spot to display your bags and wooden board (the road).
4. Open one bag per day starting on Palm Sunday. After opening the bag, discuss the card and item inside and then place the item on the road.
5. If desired, have your child “move Jesus” down the road each day using a wooden figure.
6. Repeat until you get to Resurrection Sunday!

My goal with the countdown cards was to highlight each day of Holy Week in a simple format. If you want more depth you can read the corresponding verses with your family. Since we are already going through a set of Resurrection Cards with longer Bible passages over twelve days, we will just be reading the short summary on each card. I wanted to do this activity with my boys for the hands-on, visual aspect, whereas our other cards are more in-depth reading.

Feel free to use whatever props make sense to you and what you already have on hand. All the items pictured are things we already had or I made with simple materials.

Click below to download your cards and enjoy this activity with your family!

I’m looking forward to starting this activity with my boys in a few days to keep our focus on Jesus this Easter. Let me know how it goes if your family also uses the countdown cards!