How we celebrate Easter Year 7 sets 2 and 4

Easter is a Christian festival. For Christians the custom of giving eggs at Easter celebrates new life.

Young children believe that the Easter bunny brings the eggs.

Sometimes children have Easter egg hunts where adults hide the eggs and we go looking for them.

We eat sweet, fruited hot cross buns decorated with a representation of the Holy Cross.

We sometimes eat Simnel cake as well. This is covered in a thick layer of marzipan and is traditionally decorated with 11 marzipan balls to represent the 12 apostles of Christ, minus the disgraced Judas.

In some parts of England some people go and watch Pace Egging. This involves processions of strangely dressed people or ‘mummers’ ringing bells, dancing and generally making merry travelling through the town to gather eggs and money from passers by.

Sometimes we send Easter cards to each other.

There will often be lots of flowers to make the church colourful and bright. There will be joyful hymns and choruses sung. Some churches will hold a service early in the morning, just as day breaks, to remember how Mary went to the tomb at daybreak and discovered the empty tomb and Jesus alive.

In some churches there will be a special candle lit, called a Pascal candle. Jesus is known as the Light of the World and the Pascal candle is a sign of this. Priests in some churches will wear white or gold clothes, contrasting with the black they wore on Good Friday. Sometimes an Easter Garden is built in the church or children make small Easter Gardens to display at home or in the church.

Easter gardens are sometimes made by children to show the empty tomb. These can be made by using pebbles or rocks to build a miniature tomb, a stone to make the rock that was rolled away from the entrance, small pieces of cloth to represent the grave clothes and lots of small spring flowers to make a garden around the tomb.