Easter in Nature study

I purchased a Nature Study from NaturExplorers (here). I thought since Easter was later in the spring this year, it would be perfect to study nature along with our celebration of Jesus' death and resurrection. We will continue this into next week, depending on the weather, but I wanted to share with you what we've done already and the plan for next week.

Fragrance Walk - We talked about the story of Mary who poured expensive perfumes on Jesus' feet days before he was to die. We wrote down some descriptive words on a piece of paper like: sweet, bitter, woodsy, fresh... The boys then walked around our yard and the wooded area beside us looking for smells that matched these descriptions. It was a beautiful day for a walk!

Passover/Egg Walk - The Passover meal is a celebration by the Jews to remember how God delivered the Israelites from the Egyptions. The nature study listed items that are eaten as a symbolic Passover meal. One of these items is eggs - a symbol of life. We then talked about the reason we use eggs at Easter time - when we celebrate Jesus' life and the new life He gives us. We went on a "real" egg hunt - looking for birds' nests and eggs. We found some nests, but most of them looked like old ones that will not be used this year. The boys then found one new nest, but no eggs yet. We will keep a watch on this one.

Golgotha - The boys' grandparents (also our neighbors) had a large tree taken down this week. We have taken much time this week to watch them take it down. (A very interesting process.) One day was spent moving that wood from the yard to the barn for next year's heating fuel. After reading how Simon of Cyrene was asked to carry Jesus' cross, we talked about how heavy that cross would've been. Of course, some of the pieces of wood we saw them cut, we can't budge without tools. The size of cross needed to crucify a grown man would've been quite large, therefore, also heavy.

Lilies are another symbol of Easter. The Easter Lily is white, which represents Jesus' purity and how His blood cleanses us. I bought an Easter Lily plant this week so that we could study the flower. We also chose a cousin of the lily - a tulip - so each boy could dissect their own flower. They each drew a picture of the flower and all the different parts - pistil, stamen, stigma, ovary, pollen, petals, etc. Very good nature lesson on a day that we couldn't go outside into nature.

The plan for the rest of our study:
Black Friday - Jesus died on the cross, paying the price for our sins. This day was both good and bad, happy and sad. On a nature walk, (or if it's not a nice day, we can just look outside), look for things that give us happy feelings and things that give us sad feelings, or remind us of tears.

Jellybean Prayer Scavenger Hunt:
Red is for the blood He gave.
Green is for the grass He made.
Yellow is for the sun so bright.
Orange is for the edge of night.
Black is for the sins we made.
White is for the grace He gave.
I purchased a bag of jellybeans to have when we read the poem. Then we will head outside to look for things in nature that represent all these colors of the poem.

Burial- Jesus was placed in a tomb, or a hole carved out of rock, so we will look at rocks. We will look for similarities and differences in the rocks we find. We might even try to break a rock, so show how difficult it would be to break or carve a rock.

Coloring Eggs - Of course, we will have to take time out next week to color eggs for Easter. We might even try to paint them, instead of just using dyes. As we color and/or paint, we will think of all the colors and what they represent in the Easter story.

If we get another nice day before Easter, we might just take a walk in a local park to look at the flowers that might be blooming - planted or wild. Purple should remind us of royalty and that Jesus is the King! White should remind us how Jesus' death washed our sins and made us white as snow.