Sensory Easter activities can be a powerful way to make the Easter story accessible to all children. Guest blogger Mark Arnold joins Different Dream readers this Holy Week to share some of his favorite sensory Easter activities.

Easter is one of the most important times in the Christian calendar and is a key point in the children’s and youth work teaching programming. It’s a time to remember, to be thankful, and to celebrate what Jesus has done for us all. But the big story of Easter can be difficult for some children and young people with special needs to understand. How do we help everyone to be able to engage with Jesus’ sacrificial death on Good Friday and his life-giving resurrection on Easter Sunday?

Children learn best when their senses are engaged, whether through things for them to touch and feel, look at, listen to, taste, or smell. Let’s look at some sensory ideas that tell the Easter story, but that will also give kids ways to access other complex themes to engage with throughout the year.

• Let young people feel large nails, 6-inch or 9-inch ones if you can find them, as well as a piece of rough wood as you tell the Good Friday story. (Make the story appropriate for the age group.) Your an also hammer the nails into the wood as you talk. The sound of the nails being struck provides another strong sensory input. (Warning: Loud noise can be painful for some children, so headphones may be helpful).
• Have essential oils or dried spices for the children to smell to represent the spices that were used as Jesus’ body was wrapped in linen.
• Get some strips of white linen or cotton. The children can wrap them around their hands, arms, or legs and feel them.
• Put large pebbles or cobble stones in the freezer so that they are very cold to touch. Use them to represent how cold the tomb was where Jesus’ body was laid.
• Give each children a cold stone and bring the children to build a tomb. Then remove the stone over the doorway and place a tea light inside to light it up. Use a bright flashlight to represent the sunrise on Easter Sunday. Have flowers for the children to smell, representing the garden where Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene.
• Have children share the happiest news is that they have ever heard, just as Mary Magdalene, Peter and John shared their exciting news with the other disciples and followers. Then give them some chocolate to taste as they celebrate the good news together that Jesus is alive!

These sensory Easter activities make the more accessible to the children and young people and build their understanding. If our Easter teaching uses as many of the senses as possible, children and young people will learn and be brought into the story. We can help every child, including children with special needs or disabilities, to understand and respond to this most wonderful and life transforming message. And we can use these ideas to help us to do similar sensory teaching every other week of the year too!