Activities for Kids About Jesus Dying on a Cross
When you approach the subject of Jesus dying on the cross, activities can make the topic less frightening and more understandable to kids. Occasions where you could use these activities include Good Friday or another Holy Week service and when a child asks why Jesus is hanging on a crucifix.
Other People Are Reading
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Read About It
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You and your child can read about Jesus’s death on the cross. For young children, use simple language from a children’s Bible, Bible story book or from books such as "The Week that Led to Easter," by Joanne Larrison, and "The Easter Story," by Patricia A. Pingry. With older children, you can read the Gospel accounts from easy-to-understand translations such as the New Century version, Today’s English version, Easy-to-Read version or “The Message.” Relevant Scriptures include Matthew 27:32-56, Mark 15:21-41, Luke 23:26-49 and John 19:16-37. To fully engage kids, you can dramatize the Scriptures or use puppets to tell the story.
Cross Activities
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Children can use representations of Calvary to remember Jesus dying on the cross. Kindergarteners through second-graders child can build a diorama with a shoe box, clay and twigs and twine to make the crosses. Older children can examine a crucifix to see what Jesus might have looked like hanging on the cross. To remind kids that Jesus didn’t stay on the cross, but emerged on Easter, you can make three twig and twine crosses and place them around the edge of a flower pot full of blooming flowers that represent the resurrection.
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Stations of the Cross
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Many churches walk the stations of the cross on Good Friday to commemorate Jesus's path from his trial through the resurrection. The websites Bread on the Water and Loyola Press provide free stations of the cross for kids that parents can use to walk the stations as a family. At each stop, children are told what happened and you can lead a prayer. The stations of the cross include the seven last words that Jesus spoke from the cross. You can incorporate coloring pages for young children or dress in biblical garb to make the walk more memorable.
Other Activities
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Pilate wrote a sign to hang over Jesus as he was crucified, according to John 19:19-22. The sign said “Jesus of Nazareth, The King of Jews” in the Latin, Greek and Hebrew languages. Kids can make a sign to put on the top of a craft stick cross. For another option, kids can remember that Jesus asked God to forgive those who crucified him in Luke 23:34. They can make a prayer box decorated with the three crosses on Golgotha where they can write down prayers for others. For a third option, they can glue a picture of a lamb on a craft stick cross to remember that Jesus was the final sacrificial lamb so an annual lamb sacrifice would no longer be necessary. Read John 1:29 while the kids make the cross.
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